Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph and Manuscript Collections

A British administrator in the Naga Hills: Cataloguing the Hutton collection of photographs at the Pitt Rivers Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 10:06:00 +0000

'Semas dancing' (handwritten caption on reverse of print). View of Sümi Naga men dancing, with spectators in the background.

Photograph by John Henry Hutton. Lokobomi, Nagaland, India. Undated, circa 1913–1921.

In this blog article, volunteer Peter Momtchiloff provides an update on the cataloguing of the Pitt Rivers Museum's Hutton collection, a vast and detailed visual record of life among the Naga hill peoples of northern India in the early twentieth century. Working from a set of loose prints, many of which are labelled with the photographer's own descriptions, Peter has been creating new catalogue records, making this collection better described and more fully available online for the first time. Here, in the first of several updates, he writes of his initial impressions:

The Pitt Rivers Museum holds about 1,700 photographs by John Henry Hutton, taken while he was British Assistant Commissioner and then Deputy Commissioner in the Naga Hills, north-east India, between around 1913 and 1926.

What did Hutton photograph? Well, we haven't finished cataloguing the collection, but I can give a provisional answer based on the 654 photographs in groups JH.1 to JH.6. This might represent about four years' worth of photography, perhaps early in Hutton's time in Nagaland; but we don't know yet how closely the labelling of the photographs follows the sequence in which they were taken. (There are some obvious groupings: e.g. JH.6.56–.69 were clearly taken on a trip to Manipur; but sometimes the locations and subjects seem to jump back and forth.)

Left: Full-length frontal portrait of a Lotha Naga man named Likao, in ceremonial dress, holding a spear and a dao (cutting implement).

Right: Half-length portrait, from the side, of a young Konyak Naga woman, daughter of the chief of Pungkhung (now called Pongkong), wearing headdress, earrings, necklaces and bangles, standing outside a large house with a thatched roof.

Photographs by John Henry Hutton. Nagaland, India. Undated, circa 1913–1923.

31% of the photographs are portraits of Naga people. 12% are individual portraits of Naga men, while another 8% show groups of men. Only 5% of the photographs show women or groups of women, 1% show couples, 1% families, and 2% mixed groups. Often Hutton's subjects are specially dressed or adorned, but many appear as their everyday selves, the photographs often focusing just on the face.

33% of the photographs are of things made by Naga people. Only 4% are routinely useful portable objects like weapons, tools or textiles. 14% are objects with some kind of power or meaning (displayed skulls, graves, ceremonial posts, carvings). 9% of the photographs show buildings (houses, walls, gates, fortifications, wells and waterworks, bridges). 6% show the Naga-made environment: villages, roads, cultivated land.

'Inato's grave' (handwritten caption). View from below of a construction of several connected wooden frames decorated with skulls and horns of mithan (oxen), this construction being identified as the grave of a Sümi Naga man named Inato (identified elsewhere as chief of Lumitsami).

Photograph by John Henry Hutton. Lumthsami (uncertain), Nagaland, India. Undated, circa 1913–1923.

7% of the photographs show work activities (hunting, fishing, potting, spinning and weaving). Another 7% show meaningful non-economic organised activities: rituals, dancing, sports.

23% of the photographs are less directly concerned with Naga people: 11% show landscapes, 8% Hutton's domestic environment (houses, gardens, human and canine companions), 4% his holidays outside Nagaland.

What did Hutton not photograph? Well, so far I have seen nothing of the great passages of life on which we today expend so much photographic energy: weddings, funerals, babies. Perhaps these were out of sight for him, or perhaps there was some reluctance for them to be photographed.

I have seen little of the basic sustenance of life: no eating, no drinking, no cooking. Very little agriculture, given that it must have occupied a great deal of everyday life. Perhaps that's the point: Hutton was less interested in the everyday and the universal than in the special, the distinctive.

The title pages of John Henry Hutton's two monographs on the Angami Naga and the Sümi [Sema] Naga tribes of north-east India, both published in 1921.

Eventually Hutton would slip smoothly, at the age of fifty-two, from the Indian Civil Service into one of the top jobs in academic anthropology, the Wyse chair at Cambridge. But he had no formal training as an anthropologist. (He had taken a gentleman's third-class degree in history from Oxford.) He acknowledged that in his ethnographic work in Nagaland he was guided by the 1912 edition of Notes and Queries on Anthropology published by the Royal Anthropological Institute. Whether under the influence of such guidance, or just through his personal inclination, the main interests in his Naga photography were typical of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century anthropology.

Perhaps his primary interest – luckily for his friend Henry Balfour and the Pitt Rivers Museum – was material culture: artefacts, the built environment, how Naga people adorned themselves.

'Fish "poisoning" at Pongithungizgü, preliminary pounding' (handwritten caption). View of Lotha Naga men pounding plants by a river in preparation for fishing.

Photograph by John Henry Hutton. Pongitong (uncertain), Nagaland, India. Undated, circa 1913–1923.

Hutton was also interested in their physical persons, as his many portrait photographs attest. Sometimes he takes the perspective of old school physical anthropology: he sees some of his Naga subjects as 'types' of one kind or another. But often he just seems interested in their faces and characters.

The third, typically anthropological interest that is obvious in Hutton's photography is ritual and ceremony. In his books he seeks to go deep into the thought-world of the various Naga groups, especially their understandings of how the world works: Naga science/magic/religion/ethics. And, of course, these systems of thought are reflected also in the many objects that he transmitted to the museum.

Peter Momtchiloff

Volunteer, Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM), University of Oxford

14 May 2025

Bibliography

J. H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas: With Some Notes on Neighbouring Tribes (London: Macmillan and Co., 1921).

J. H. Hutton, Caste in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946).

J. H. Hutton, 'Diaries of Two Tours in the Unadministered Area East of the Naga Hills', Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 11/1 (1929), pp.1–72.

J. H. Hutton, 'Outline of Chang Grammar', Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series, 25/1 (1929), pp. 1–101.

J. H. Hutton, Rudimentary Grammar of the Sema Naga Language: With Vocabulary (Shillong: Assam Secretariat Printing Office, 1916).

J. H. Hutton, The Sema Nagas (London, Macmillan and Co., 1921).

Julian Jacobs with Alan Macfarlane, Sarah Harrison and Anita Herle, The Nagas: Hill Peoples of Northeast India: Society, Culture and the Colonial Encounter (Stuttgart: Edition Hansjörg Mayer, 1990).

J. P. Mills, The Ao Nagas (London: Macmillan and Co., 1926).

J. P. Mills, The Lhota Nagas (London: Macmillan and Co., 1922).

Notes and Queries on Anthropology, eds. Barbara Freire-Marreco and John Linton Myres [for the British Association for the Advancement of Science] (4th edition, London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1912).

Men of letters: A correspondence between Franz Boas and E. B. Tylor

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 16:07:00 +0000

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Elana Neher discusses a unique collection of eighteen handwritten letters sent by Franz Boas to Edward B. Tylor, both considered pivotal figures in the discipline of anthropology in their respective countries, and now held in the Pitt Rivers Museum's manuscript collections. During the course of digitising the correspondence, Elana recognised in the letters a shared interest and mutual respect, and here describes what she learned about the two anthropologists who exchanged them:

As a faculty assistant for Dr Aaron Glass at Bard Graduate Centre, I have spent the past year working with the bibliography of Franz Boas, an anthropologist who has been called the 'father of American anthropology'. By compiling and formatting documents about practically everything Boas wrote and everything written about him, I had become intimately familiar with the way Boas wrote and how he was perceived by those around him. However, my initial impressions were nothing compared to the connection I felt when I held the original letters which Boas wrote to E. B. Tylor, his colleague in Oxford, which are now preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum's manuscript collections.

Franz Boas posing for figure in United States National Museum exhibit titled 'Hamats'a coming out of a secret room'.

Photographer unknown. Washington, DC, United States of America. Circa 1895.

Source: https://daily.jstor.org/the-life-and-times-of-franz-boas (accessed 6 December 2024)

Before we delve into the correspondence between these two pioneering scholars, it is worth looking at the biographies of Boas and Tylor to understand their backgrounds. Edward Burnett Tylor – Boas's correspondent in Oxford – might already be familiar to readers of the Pitt Rivers Museum's blog. He was the first anthropologist in Britain to receive a university appointment, which was at the University of Oxford. During his tenure at Oxford, he was key to the establishment of anthropology in academic institutions and to the early years of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Tylor is best known for his book Primitive Culture (1871) in which he theorised about the unilineal evolution of culture and the evolution of religion from what he called 'animism', or the most simple or 'primitive' form of religion. Our other letter writer, Franz Boas, greatly opposed the anthropological theories of evolutionism (like those of Tylor). He argued that evolutionism generalised and 'distorted the realities of cultural diversity'. Instead, Boas espoused cultural relativism, meaning that each culture should be understood on its own terms.

Portrait of Edward Burnett Tylor seated at his desk.

Photographer unknown. Oxford, England. Undated, circa 1900.

Boas and Tylor were unified by their passion for indigenous Northwest Coast material culture. Between 1897 and 1902, Boas led the Jesup North Pacific Expedition to observe the relationship between indigenous peoples from the Northwest Coast of America with the indigenous peoples of Siberia. Around the same time, Tylor served as the chair of the British Association for the Advancement of Science's Committee on the North-Western Tribes of Canada. Knowing that Boas and Tylor were both pillars of anthropology and scholars of the Northwest Coast, yet fundamentally opposed in anthropological theory and practice, I immediately wondered: how would these two men have communicated? Would their conversations about anthropological theory be terse and argumentative, or would they put aside their differences, share research, and collaborate for the benefit of the field?

To answer this, we can look at the eighteen letters in the Pitt River Museum's manuscript collections. My task during my internship with the department was to make high-quality digital scans of the letters that Franz Boas sent to Edward Tylor at Oxford, and to prepare them for upload by staff to the Museum's collections online platform. (The letters are also presented in full at the end of this blog article.) Thus, I spent a considerable amount of time looking at these handwritten letters, and, as I did, I began to get a sense of the relationship between Boas and Tylor.

Pages of a letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 12 December 1896: 'I am much interested in the mask a photograph of which you had the kindness to send me. Although I do not know the meaning I conclude from analogy that it must have been used in a ceremony in which the legend of the clan was represented.'

One of the letters that I found most intriguing was dated 12 December 1896 (see above). In this letter, Boas was responding to Tylor's enquiry about an object in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections, which Boas calls a 'raven mask'. I was initially struck by Boas's sketch of the mask, as this is the only letter from Boas in the Museum's manuscript collections that includes a drawing. I could easily recognise the raven mask in the Pitt Rivers' collections that Boas was referring to because he imbued his drawing with such detail.

Wooden transformation mask in the form of a raven with beak that opens to expose a female face inside with a crooked nose and labret. The mask is edged with feathers and fur and there is a red human figure with blue face, joined arms and pale hair that stands upright on the top of the mask.

This mask has attracted much scholarly attention, including from the 'Haida Material Culture in UK Museums' project; the mask project by Haida master carver James Hart that now resides at the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia; and interviews with other Haida elders, carvers, artists and anthropologists. These past projects provide an in-depth iconographic, technical and material analysis of the mask, and I highly recommend taking a look at them. Rather than focusing on the mask itself, however, I want to examine what this sketch reveals about the relationship between Boas and Tylor.

The papers of Franz Boas are today housed at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and thankfully they have undertaken a similar digitisation project of their archives. The time and effort of staff and volunteers put into scanning and cataloguing the letters meant that I was able to find the corresponding letters which Tylor sent to Boas. In Tylor's initial letter about the mask, sent on 6 November 1896, Tylor asked Boas if he thought that the small red figure at the top of the face of the raven mask was a representation of the soul (as Boas had discussed in a report), and he offered to send a photograph of the mask.

Letter from Edward Burnett Tylor to Franz Boas, dated 6 November 1896: 'Now do you remember the great Haida mask we have here, which when closed gives the medicine man a great raven head, but when a tiny string is pulled the sides of the head & beak fly open, a human mask is disclosed and on the top of it a tiny red figure jumps up erect? I can send you a photo if you wish. There is some story of this representing a myth, the little human figure being the Wanderer, who figures in it. But it corresponds so closely to your account of the soul, that I should like to know your opinion on the matter.'

Source: https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126234 (accessed 6 December 2024)

In a follow-up letter, dated 26 November 1896, Tylor sent Boas the photograph. He vividly described the movement of the figure as the mask opens and explained why he was asking Boas about the figure: 'When thrown open the way in which the little man springs upright above the human mask is so surprisingly like your description of the soul that I am led to conjecture that the little man is either life-soul, or guardian spirit, or medicine or totem spirit...' Through these initial letters, we can discern that Tylor and Boas had a collegial relationship such that they read and respected each other's research and opinions. Tylor even assumed that Boas would be familiar with the mask without seeing the photograph, suggesting that they were familiar with the collections of each other's institutions as well.

In the letter I digitised at the Pitt Rivers Museum, dated 12 December 1896, Boas thanks Tylor for sending him the photograph. He concedes that he does not know the exact meaning of the mask, but goes on to describe the different animals he saw in the mask based on his research. To Boas, the outer figure represented a raven while the interior figure represented either a female killer whale or a 'sea monster, a combination of hawk and killer whale'. He was unable to determine which it was based on the photograph, and he illustrates for Tylor which nose position would indicate a killer whale and which would indicate a sea monster (see below). Boas also sketched for Tylor the features of the mask's face that indicate it is female and a killer whale.

Ink drawings, above and below, included in a four-page letter from Franz Boas to Edward Burnett Tylor, dated 12 December 1896: 'The photograph, although very beautiful, does not show clearly if the point of the nose runs into the mask, or if it is simply perforated. In the latter case I should consider the figure simply that of a female killer whale, in the first case that of a sea monster, a combination of hawk and killer whale.'

Boas then details each feature of the killer whale in text and drawings. He connects his illustrations to the text using numbers labelling each point: (1.) 'the right half of the dorsal fin, turned downward in front of the body'; (2.) 'the right flipper'; (3.) 'probably the tail'; and (4.) 'the eye next to the face'. The details which Boas provided clearly show how much passion he had for the study of Northwest Coast material culture, and how much he enjoyed sharing that knowledge. At the end of his letter, Boas offered to take Tylor's photograph with him on his next trip to the Pacific Northwest to 'see what he can learn'.

Jumping ahead to 2 June 1902, Boas sent Tylor another letter relating to the mask. Boas had recently returned from the Jesup North Pacific Expedition and sent Tylor a letter within a few months. In fact, Boas had taken the photograph with him on his travels to the Northwest Coast and learned much about the raven transformation mask. He had spoken with anthropologist Dr John R. Swanton on Queen Charlotte Islands, who told him the name of the carver of the mask: Charles Edenshaw, a master carver of Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), and the interpretation of each figure in the mask.

Envelope for a letter sent by Franz Boas to Edward Burnett Tylor, dated (and postmarked) 2 June 1902: 'You will remember that a number of years ago you sent me a photograph of a Haida mask consisting of a human face inside of two large folding wings, which, when closed, represent a raven. On top of the inner mask is a small figure of a man with movable hands. You asked me at that time to ascertain the significance of this mask. It has taken me all these years to obtain the information that you desire.'

All of the different faces of the mask actually represent the same figure, according to Swanton: 'It represents the Nenkilstlas, the mythical Raven – outside in the form of the raven, inside in human form. The small figure on the top of the mask also represents Nenkilstlas.' Swanton spoke to Edenshaw who said (in Boas's words) 'when the different strings are pulled, this figure begins to shake its hand, which means that the person who wears the mask is higher in rank than all the tribes that were invited'. It amazes me that Boas was still thinking about the mask in the Pitt Rivers Museum five years after he first learned about it; and cared enough about both the mask – indigenous Northwest Coast material culture – and Tylor, who had asked about the mask on his expedition, that he promptly wrote a letter to Tylor about it.

'I am, Dear Sir, Very truly yours, Franz Boas.' The typically respectful conclusion of a letter from Franz Boas to Edward Burnett Tylor, dated 5 June 1889.

Though diametrically opposed in their theoretical approaches to anthropology, Tylor's and Boas's letters reveal a cordial and mutually beneficial relationship. As I digitised and read the numerous letters, it warmed my heart to see Boas's tender sign-offs (see example above). The fact that Boas remembered Tylor's interest in the raven mask over five years later said a lot about the respect they held for each other and their mutual passion for anthropology.

Elana Neher

Bard Graduate Center postgraduate (Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, reading for M.A.)

6 December 2024

Bibliography

Paul Bohannan and Mark Glazer, High Points in Anthropology (2nd ed., New York: Knopf, 1988).

Aaron Glass, 'Drawing on Museums: Early Visual Fieldnotes by Franz Boas and the Indigenous Recuperation of the Archive', American Anthropologist, 120 (2018), pp. 72–88.

Ira Jacknis, 'Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897–1902 (review)', Ethnohistory, 50/4 (2003), pp. 779–781.

Cara Krmpotich and Laura Peers, This Is Our Life: Haida Material Heritage and Changing Museum Practice (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013).

Henrika Kuklick (ed.), A New History of Anthropology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2009).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Totem Pole Model', <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/319222> (accessed 6 December 2024).

Report of the Sixty-Ninth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Dover in September 1899 (London: John Murray, 1900).

George W. Stocking, Victorian Anthropology (New York: Free Press, 1987).

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Correspondence beween Franz Boas (1858–1942) and Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) held in the Pitt Rivers Museum, covering a period from 1888 to 1902:

(1.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 4 October 1888. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 1 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.1]

(2.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 6 March 1889. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 2 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.2]

(3.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 18 April 1889. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 3 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.3]

(4.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in Berlin) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 5 June 1889. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 4 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.4]

(5.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 6 July 1889. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 5 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.5]

(6.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in Worcester, Massachusetts) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 17 November 1889. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 6 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.6]

(7.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in Worcester, Massachusetts) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 19 December 1889. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 7 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.7]

(8.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in Worcester, Massachusetts) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 16 January 1890. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 8 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.8]

(9.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in San Francisco) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 31 December 1894. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 9 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.9]

(10.) Letter from Franz Boas (in Koblenz) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 27 June 1895. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 10 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.10]

(11.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in Neubrandenburg) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 29 July 1895. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 11 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.11]

(12.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 19 January 1896. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 12 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.12]

(13.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 5 June 1896. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 13 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.13]

(14.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 12 December 1896. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 14 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.14]

(15.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 8 March 1897. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 15 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.15]

(16.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 13 April 1897. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 16 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.16]

(17.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 1 December 1898; enclosed with a copy of a letter from Franz Boas (in New York City) to George Griffith (in London), dated 2 December 1898. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 17 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.17]

(18.) Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 2 June 1902. Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1, Item 18 [Mss.Tylo.11A.1.18]

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The other side of a correspondence: Letters sent from Edward Burnett Tylor to Franz Boas, written between 1888 and 1908:

(1.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 11 September 1888. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126216]

(2.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 7 June 1889. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126217]

(3.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 12 June 1889. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126218]

(4.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 16 October 1889. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126219]

(5.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 9 December 1889. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126220]

(6.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 31 December 1889. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126221]

(7.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 27 May 1890. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126222]

(8.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 9 October 1890. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126223]

(9.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 9 August 1891. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126224]

(10.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 22 December 1894. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126225]

(11.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 10 April 1895. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126226]

(12.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 26 April 1895. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126227]

(13.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 20 June 1895. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126228]

(14.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 29 August 1895. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126228]

(15.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 19 September 1895. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126230]

(16.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 5 October 1895. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126231]

(17.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 5 January 1896. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126232]

(18.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 24 September 1896. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126233]

(19.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 6 November 1896. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126234]

(20.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 26 November 1896. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126235]

(21.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 13 February 1897. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126236]

(22.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 21 August 1898. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126237]

(23.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 2 September 1898. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126238]

(24.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 5 October 1898. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126239]

(25.) Letter sent from Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford) to Franz Boas, dated 8 March 1908. Source: American Philosophical Society Library, Franz Boas Papers [https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text%3A126240]

A photographic homecoming: Kop Temi and Bat Heli in the Subansiri Hills, Northeast India

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 17:02:00 +0000

Student Menia Taba demonstrates the Pitt Rivers Museum's website to descendants connected with her topic of study for her Masters dissertation in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology.

Tago village, Keyi Panyor district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Photograph by Yehi Taba. April 2024.

Courtesy and copyright Yehi Taba

In this blog article, graduate student Menia Taba describes her research project on the visual repatriation of two historic photograph collections. She collaborated with the Pitt Rivers Museum to return black and white photographs of two Nyishi elders – Kop Temi and Bat Heli – to their families in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The photographs, taken in the 1940s by British anthropologists Ursula Graham Bower and Charles Stonor, have played an important role in documenting Nyishi people's history. By returning the images, the work has helped to reconnect the descendant families with their heritage and opened a dialogue about the community's past, becoming important tools for sharing stories and preserving traditions. Explaining her interest, Menia commences:

As a Masters student in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology at the University of Oxford, I had the wonderful opportunity recently to work with the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum. In the course of my dissertation project, I organised and led the visual repatriation of thirty-four photographs from the Ursula Graham Bower and Charles Stonor collections, taking print and digital copies of these images back to the communities and families of the people originally photographed.

Left: portrait of Nyishi head interpreter Kop Temi. Photograph by Charles Robert Stonor. Selsemchi, Subansiri district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. November 1946.

Right: portrait of Nyishi interpreter Bat Heli. Photograph by Ursula Graham Bower. Subansiri district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1946.

Among hundreds of photographs of unnamed Nyishi subjects, I unearthed nine named photographs of Bat Heli and twenty-five of Kop Temi, both important Nyishi elders, pictured in the current Keyi Panyor administrative district (previously Subansiri district) in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. These compelling photographs, taken by British administrator-anthropologists Ursula Graham Bower and Charles Stonor between 1946 and 1948, are today housed in the archives of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

Bower and Stonor

Ursula Violet Graham Bower (1914–1988) was a British anthropologist who accompanied her husband, Frederick Nicholson Betts, to the Subansiri Hills of (then) Assam (today in Arunachal Pradesh). She had not previously received any formal training in anthropology, but her photographs and films taken during her time in both the Naga and Subansiri Hills established her name in the field alongside leading specialists James Philip Mills and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. In 1946, her husband Frederick Nicholson Betts was appointed as a political officer in the Apatani valley. As Political Officer, he had to trek the hills and engage with the tribal inhabitants, mostly the Apatani, Niyishi and Hill Miri peoples. He was tasked to build relations with the indigenous people, to administer the area, to select a site for the construction of an official post, and to retrieve food and stores through an annual airdrop. Between 1946 and 1948 considerable time was devoted to the Apatani and Nyishi regions; significant focus was placed on trekking activities and the establishment of British administrative frameworks in the area.

Title page of Ursula Graham Bower's second book The Hidden Land, which records her time living and travelling among the Nyishi and Apatani peoples of Arunachal Pradesh, Northeastern India, in the mid- to late 1940s. Bower dedicated her book to 'Kop Temi and all our other friends of the Subansiri area'.

Source: Ursula Graham Bower, The Hidden Land (London: John Murray, 1953), title page (left) and p. v (dedication, right).

Charles Robert Stonor (1912–1982) was a British anthropologist, naturalist and cryptozoologist. He was appointed as an agricultural officer in the region and visited the territory with James Philip Mills, who was serving as colonial officer in the Assam Hills in late 1945; and he visited again in 1946 with Ralph Izzard, a Daily Mail journalist, to find out more about the mythical aquatic reptile of the region known as 'buru'. Unlike Bower, Stonor did not stay for long periods in the region; rather, he made multiple short visits. As he wrote in a later article: 'Between 1945 and 1949 I was able to pay four visits to their country; spending a total of three and a half months in the area.' Throughout his stay in the region, he gathered ethnographic data through extensive fieldwork and interviews with the Nyishi (previously called Dafla) and Apatani communities. This work culminated in the publication of scientific papers examining the intricate belief systems of these indigenous groups.

During the 1940s, the explorations of the Apatani valley and adjacent hills by Bower and Stonor led to the extensive visual documentation of the area's inhabitants and landscape. Subsequently, large parts of these two collections were donated to and are now housed at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Among the photographs are included numerous images of Nyishi people, though many are unnamed or unidentified. Notably, however, photographs of Kop Temi and Bath Heli are distinguished by the presence of accompanying captions identifying these two individuals.

The Nyishi interpreters

During official tours of duty it was crucial to enlist tribal interpreters who would oversee accommodation, porterage and communication with the native residents. In the Subansiri Hills – predominantly inhabited by the Apatani people in the valley and the neighbouring Nyishi in the hills – it was essential to engage Apatani and Nyishi interpreters. Kop Temi, a man in his thirties from Ranghajan, who was the first in his clan and tribe to have received a formal education, was appointed by von Fürer-Haimendorf, Bower and Stonor during each of their stays.

'People in this Book'. In her book The Hidden Land, Bower identifies local collaborators, facilitators and assistants, including Kop Temi ('An elderly, educated Dafla [Nyishi] from a village in the plains. Head Interpreter, Subansiri Area') and Bat Heli ('A young Dafla [Nyishi] interpreter. Second in command to Kop Temi') among others.

Source: Ursula Graham Bower, The Hidden Land (London: John Murray, 1953), pp. xix–xx.

With his linguistic abilities, Kop Temi was fluent in different dialects of the Tani languages, including Nyishi and Apatani, as well as Assamese, which remained a major official language during the British Assam regime. Additionally, Bat Heli, a young man in his twenties from Selsemchi village in the Subansiri region, coordinated the arrangement of porters from various villages and the settlement of disputes during the administrative tour made by Bower between 1946 and 1948.

Photographs of Kop Temi and Bat Heli

Of the twenty-five photographs of Kop Temi in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections, three were taken by Charles Stonor (using a medium format camera) in November 1946; the rest were taken by Ursula Graham Bower, on 35 mm film, between 1946 and 1948. The nine photographs of Bat Heli were also taken by Bower between 1946 and 1948. The Stonor collection of photographs was donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1969, whereas Bower's collection likely arrived in 1985 (exact date uncertain).

A meeting presided over by head interpreter Kop Temi (seated, fourth figure from right) in an effort to resolve an intertribal dispute.

Photograph by Ursula Graham Bower. Duta Pape, Subansiri district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1947–1948.

The two collections follow the theme of the ethnographic visual record. Many snapshots of Kop Temi were taken by Bower during the settlement of a dispute at Duta Pape in the Apatani valley (see example above), while other pictures were taken on sacrificing a mithun (ox) as the ritual determining a peace treaty between parties. The photographs of Kop Temi taken by Stonor are slightly more formal portraits. Bower's photographs of Bat Heli show him standing beside the treaty pole (see example below).

View of young Nyishi interpreter Bat Heli standing in the hills alongside 'pogran tripods' (treaty monuments).

Photograph by Ursula Graham Bower. Yoku, Subansiri district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1947.

Treaty poles were erected after the settlement of disputes in locations where a mel (meeting) had taken place, and was a common theme visible in the photographs taken by Bower. There are also photographs of Kop Temi and Bath Heli pictured alongside or among other indigenous people, but these other people remain unidentified with an absence in the record of their names.

Returning the photographs

In April 2024, a collaborative effort with the Pitt Rivers Museum led to the successful return of nine photographs of Bat Heli to his sons, today living in Tago village in the Keyi Panyor district of Arunachal Pradesh. The endeavour aimed to reconnect these culturally significant photographs with their rightful custodians. The monochrome images were printed using a laser printer on A4-sized paper, making them suitable for group viewing (see image below). The printed copies of the photographs, as well as their digital image files, in TIFF and JPEG formats, were accompanied by an Excel spreadsheet containing the catalogue records from the Pitt Rivers Museum's database. These materials were then transferred to a USB flash drive, which was subsequently presented to the family members.

Sharing the Pitt Rivers Museum's photographs of Bat Heli with his sons Bath Dopum (left) and Bath Khilling (right).

Tago village, Keyi Panyor district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Photograph by Yehi Taba. April 2024.

Courtesy and copyright Yehi Taba

In Naharlagun, Papum Pare district, twenty-five photographs of Kop Temi were handed over to his son Kop Saul (see below). Again, the photographs were laser printed at A4 size; and an accompanying USB flash drive contained JPEG- and TIFF-format files of the original images, together with an Excel spreadsheet of catalogue data from the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections management system.

Sharing the museum's photographs of Kop Temi with his son Kop Saul (right).

Naharlagun, Papum Pare district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Photograph by Yehi Taba. April 2024.

Courtesy and copyright Yehi Taba

During viewing of the photographs, their reading was not confined only to the image content but extended to discussion of clan and lineage migrations, which is a vital part of Nyishi oral culture and social memory. While looking at the photographs of Kop Temi, his son Kop Saul narrated a story that was often told by his father: "The village where my father lived holds a rich history. Long ago, before Mai and Kop were divided, they were a unified clan know as Kopmai, residing together in what is now Yachuli. Tragically, an epidemic swept through the village, claiming the lives of many inhabitants. This devastating event led to bitter disputes and violent conflicts between the Kop and the Mai, each group blaming the other for the outbreak. Subsequently, the Kop chose to migrate in various directions. Eventually, some of our ancestors settled in the farthest corner nestled between the hills and the Assam Plain."

On the family's verandah, elder Bath Dopum (in the foreground) narrates the story of his clan's migration to graduate student Menia Taba (right).

Tago village, Keyi Panyor district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Photograph by Yehi Taba. April 2024.

Courtesy and copyright Yehi Taba

With a similar tone, in Tago village there also existed a deep historical connection with the photographs being returned. Bath Dopum, the eldest among Bat Heli's children, shared with me a poignant account of his family's journey to Tago. He recalled: "Our arrival in this village followed a long and arduous journey from Selsemchi. I vividly remember being about fifteen years old when a devastating epidemic swept through Selsemchi, infecting almost the whole village, including several of my family members. Faced with such a tragic loss, we sought refuge in another settlement, only to confront further heartbreak as more of our kin became critically ill and succumbed to the disease. Driven by the necessity to start anew, we embarked on a treacherous journey, traversing rugged terrain for days until we finally reached the welcoming hills of Tago village. Here, we laid the foundation for our new home, becoming the pioneering settlers of this land. Today, it fills me with pride to witness the growth of our community, as evidenced by the establishment of a primary school right here in Tago." Such was the ontological status of the photographs, which as much as being visual imagery were also a store of Nyishi traditional knowledge. These photographs became a memory salvaging tool and an interlocutor in the process of telling ancestral histories.

The photographs brought back provided a unique insight into the history and heritage of the Nyishi community. As facilitated by Nyishi interpreters Kop Temi and Bat Heli, this visual documentation, distinct from written records and archival descriptions, allowed foreign officials to perceive the Nyishi experience through a different lens.

Left to right: group portrait of Menia Taba, Bath Dopum, Bath Khilling, Likha Rinyi (sister) and Bath Tadh.

Tago village, Keyi Panyor district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Photograph by Yehi Taba. April 2024.

Courtesy and copyright Yehi Taba

These images served as catalysts for recounting historical narratives through oral tradition, which have been passed down across generations, illuminating aspects of social geography, identity, lineage and clan dynamics within the Nyishi community. Contained in the domestic spheres of Kop Temi and Bat Heli, the significance of the photographs transcended their representational and indexical characteristics, becoming deeply interwoven within the social milieu of the Nyishi people. The essence of these photographs exceeded their role as visual artefacts, serving as repositories of Nyishi traditional understanding.

The vivid reality preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum's archive within the collections of Ursula Graham Bower and Charles Stonor is now intertwined with a reimagined portrayal of the life stage and a parallel reality within the Nyishi community, nestled in a remote corner of Northeast India.

Menia Taba

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Sc.)

17 September 2024

Bibliography

Stefano Beggiora, 'The Mystery of the Buru: From Indigenous Ontology to Post-modern Fairy Tale', International Quarterly for Asian Studies, 49/3–4 (2018), pp. 33–62.

Ursula Graham Bower, The Hidden Land (London: John Murray, 1953).

C. R. Stonor, 'Notes on Religion and Ritual among the Dafla Tribes of the Assam Himalayas', Anthropos, 52 (1957), pp. 1–23.

Michael Aram Tarr and Stuart Blackburn, Through the Eye of Time: Photographs of Arunachal Pradesh, 1859–2006 (Leiden: Brill, 2008).

Wilfred Thesiger and Sheikh Zayed: A legacy in photographs

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 16:55:00 +0000

In this blog article, research fellow Dr Roba AlSalibi describes an exhibition of Wilfred Thesiger's photographs held in Abu Dhabi as part of the Sheikh Zayed Festival, outcome of a collaboration between the Pitt Rivers Museum and the United Arab Emirates' National Library and Archives. Considering the role which photography played in Thesiger's life and celebrated travels, and reflecting on his enduring relationship with the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula, Roba writes:

A new exhibition titled 'Mubarak bin London and the Nahyan Family' opened in January 2025 as part of the Sheikh Zayed Festival in Abu Dhabi. The exhibition celebrates the friendship between British traveller Wilfred Thesiger and the Nahyan family, particularly Sheikh Zayed. It features photographs taken by Thesiger of the Nahyan family in Abu Dhabi. This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, and the UAE's National Library and Archives.

View of exhibition 'Mubarak bin London and the Nahyan Family', National Library and Archives, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 20 January to 28 February 2025.

Who was Wilfred Thesiger?

British traveller and photographer Wilfred Thesiger is best known for his extensive travels in the Arabian Peninsula and his two crossings of the Empty Quarter desert. In 1945, he arrived in the region as part of the British Middle East Anti-Locust Unit, stationed in Jeddah. This role provided him with a long-awaited opportunity to pursue his ambitious goal of exploring places yet to be visited by Europeans, driven by a desire for challenge, solitude and an escape from the modern, technology-driven world. A staunch critic of technological progress, he lamented its effects on traditional cultures, often expressing his disillusionment with Western civilisation's role in eroding indigenous ways of life. Thesiger regarded the Arabian Desert as a utopia, a place where he could experience 'authenticity' before the encroachment of capitalism and find harmony with nature in a harsh yet awe-inspiring landscape.

Wilfred Thesiger's photography: A window into a vanishing world

Equipped with a camera, which he carried in a goatskin bag, and accompanied by Bedouins of Al Rashid, Thesiger sought to test his endurance in the unforgiving desert while documenting ways of life on the brink of disappearance. Throughout his travels in the Arabian Peninsula, he took thousands of photographs, capturing both the landscapes and the people he encountered or journeyed with.

Thesiger's photographic collection defies easy classification: it functions as travel photography, a visual narrative of his experiences, and an ethnographic record of the places and communities he engaged with. It was in Arabia that he began to explore the potential of photography as a medium of documentation. However, his photographs were more of a personal collection than a systematic ethnographic study intended for publication.

View of women and children on the seafront in the town of Abu Dhabi.

Photograph by Wilfred Thesiger. Abu Dhabi, Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. March 1948.

Viewed through the lens of time, his photographs both mark a specific historical moment and evoke a sense of timelessness. This duality reflects Thesiger's romanticised vision of an imagined past and his reluctance to acknowledge the inevitable passage of time. His landscape images, notable for their wide, panoramic shots, portray the desert as vast and eternal – qualities reminiscent of nineteenth-century photography and its romantic aesthetic. Unlike modernist photography, which often experiments with form and perspective, Thesiger's landscapes lack intimacy and instead strive to convey a sense of the sublime.

A recurring theme in Thesiger's landscape photographs is the solitary figure set against the vast expanse of the desert, evoking a sense of isolation, endurance and insignificance in the face of nature's overwhelming scale. By positioning his subjects as small figures within expansive terrain, he invokes the traditional depiction of the human-nature relationship – one characterised by both peril and profound spiritual significance. In a way, these images serve as a visual testament to the extreme hardships of his journeys, offering proof of his resilience and adaptability in one of the world's most unforgiving landscapes – an achievement that solidified his identity as a traveller.

Camels crossing the Maqta onto Abu Dhabi Island in the spring of 1950.

Photograph by Wilfred Thesiger. Abu Dhabi, Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. March/April 1950.

In contrast to the timeless landscape images, Thesiger's portraits of people are dynamic and intimate, capturing his subjects not as static figures but as active participants engaged in their daily lives and interactions with him. Rather than objectifying them, his images emphasise human connection and lived experience. However, both his landscape photographs and portraits exude a sense of romanticism and a deep yearning for 'authenticity', shaped by Thesiger's own personality and world-view. His fear that these traditional cultures were on the verge of disappearing manifests in a desire to preserve them in a frozen, idealised past, untouched by the forces of modernity.

It is important to highlight the paradoxical position of Wilfred Thesiger. On one hand, he longs for an imagined authenticity and an idealised past, rejecting the present in which European modernity is reshaping the world. On the other hand, his own presence in these regions was made possible by colonial structures, positioning him – ironically – as an agent of the very modernity he sought to escape.

Thesiger's deep bonds with the people of Arabia

Wilfred Thesiger held a deep admiration for the sense of solidarity and loyalty that characterised tribal life in the Arabian Peninsula – a quality he both observed and personally experienced during his travels. He particularly noted the remarkable camaraderie he developed with his companions from the Bayt Kathir and Rashid tribes, and which exemplified the trust and mutual support inherent in Bedouin society. These connections gave him the assurance of belonging to a dependable network as he navigated the harsh desert landscape. Among the Bedouins, Thesiger became affectionately known as 'Mubarak bin London', a name that reflected the respect and acceptance he earned within their communities.

Left: Close-up portrait of Wilfred Thesiger wearing Arab dress in Dubai. Photographer unknown (possibly Ronald Codrai). Dubai, Emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. April 1949.

Right: Portrait of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan sitting astride a saddled camel holding a peregrine falcon in Al Khatham sands, near Jebel Hafeet (Jabal Hafit). Photograph by Wilfred Thesiger. Al Ain Region, Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. December 1948/January 1949.

Thesiger developed a particularly close relationship with the Al Nahyan family, the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, who first welcomed him in 1948. During his expeditions across the Arabian Peninsula, he visited Abu Dhabi three times – in 1948, 1949 and 1950 – staying with the Al Nahyan family on each occasion. Thesiger was eager to meet Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as he was drawn by his esteemed reputation among the Bedouin community. Upon meeting him, he found Sheikh Zayed to be an intelligent, charismatic and hospitable leader. The two shared a mutual passion for hunting and adventure, which further deepened the bond and mutual respect.

In recognition of his invaluable contributions to documenting the history of the United Arab Emirates and the broader region, Thesiger was honoured in 2000 with the UAE's Order of Independence by his long-time friend, Sheikh Zayed. Additionally, the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage funded a project to catalogue and digitise Thesiger's photographs, which he had given to the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

A group portrait of Wilfred Thesiger standing with four sheikhs outside Qasr Al Hosn fort in Abu Dhabi. Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan to his left, Sheikh Hazza bin Sultan Al Nahyan to his right, and Sheikh Khalid bin Sultan Al Nahyan to the left of Sheikh Shakhbut. Next to Sheikh Hazza is Sheikh Ahmed Bin Mohammad Al Salf Al Nuaimi, Sheikh of the Naim tribe in Hafit, all next to the outer walls of Qasr Al Hosn.

Photographer unknown. Abu Dhabi, Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. March/April 1948.

The exhibition at the Sheikh Zayed Festival continues the celebration of the enduring relationship between Thesiger and Sheikh Zayed. It is part of a three-year research project, funded by the Abu Dhabi National Library and Archives, dedicated to studying Thesiger's photographs housed at the Pitt Rivers Museum. As the lead researcher, I was responsible for developing the exhibition content, while my colleagues at the National Library and Archives oversaw the selection of photographs and the exhibition design.

Roba AlSalibi

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

11 February 2025

Bibliography

Peter Clark, Thesiger's Return (Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 1992).

Elizabeth Edwards, 'Imagined Time: Thesiger, Photography and the Past', in Christopher Morton and Philip N. Grover (eds.), Wilfred Thesiger in Africa (London: HarperPress, 2010), pp. 106–115.

Eric Langham and Toby Goaman-Dodson (eds.), Mubarak bin London: Wilfred Thesiger and the Freedom of the Desert (Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, 2008).

Alexander Maitland, Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer (London: HarperPress, 2006).

Pitt Rivers Museum, 'Photographs of Arabia by Wilfred Thesiger', <https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/thesiger/> (accessed 11 February 2025).

Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands (London: Longmans, 1959).

Wilfred Thesiger, Crossing the Sands (Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 1999).

Wilfred Thesiger, Desert, Marsh and Mountain: The World of a Nomad (London: Collins, 1979).

Wilfred Thesiger, The Life of My Choice (London: Collins, 1979).

'Dear Tylor': Digitising a collection of correspondence in the Pitt Rivers Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 14:05:00 +0000

In this blog article, volunteer Richard Stimpson discusses some of the letters in the Pitt Rivers Museum's Tylor Papers, and gives a view of volunteering on the Museum's 'Dear Tylor' project through the University of Oxford's Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM) Volunteer Service. Initially describing his involvement with the project, before picking out various highlights which caught his attention or piqued his curiosity, Richard writes:

The 'Dear Tylor' project at the Pitt Rivers Museum is a pilot study looking into how crowdsourcing and remote digital volunteering can facilitate the transcription of archival or manuscript collections. The scope of the preliminary stage on which I volunteered was to photograph the extensive correspondence contained in the Museum's important Tylor Papers; and to label correctly, with specific filenames (as required by digital systems), the many hundreds of resulting image files. The project involved two participant volunteers, myself and Marcela Abadia, and we worked together as a team sharing the tasks. I began the project with no knowledge of anthropologist E. B. Tylor, and even now, several months later, he remains something of an enigma, seeing, as we did, only those letters received and very few responses or original enquiries made by him, save for the odd note or scribbled comment on an envelope.

Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917)

Edward Burnett Tylor was born in 1832 in London, the son of a brass foundry owner, and was brought up as a Quaker. He started work at his father's foundry at the age of sixteen, but showed signs of tuberculosis and was sent to the USA to recover. On that trip he met Henry Christy, whom he accompanied on a journey around North America during which he because interested in archaeology and anthropology. After further relapses and recovery, much travelling and a good deal of work, he was appointed Keeper of the Oxford University Museum in 1883, and became the University's first Professor of Anthropology in 1896. Tylor was knighted in 1912.

Studio portrait of Edward Burnett Tylor, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, signed by the sitter 'Edward B. Tylor'.

Photograph by Maull and Fox studio ('Maull & Fox'). London, England. Undated, circa 1890.

Edward Tylor was closely involved with the Pitt Rivers Museum from its early days, but never held a direct role. He experienced poor and declining health from around 1904, and finally left Oxford for Wellington, in Somerset, in 1910, where he eventually died in 1917. The letters in the 'Dear Tylor' project discussed here were addressed usually either to the museum or to his home address in Wellington. For those wanting a fuller biography of Tylor, much information exists on the Pitt Rivers Museum's website and in many other sources such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (article on Tylor here).

The correspondence [Tylor Papers, Boxes 11, 11A, 12, 13 and 13A]

The nature of the project work left little time to read many of the letters in great detail, but some stood out due to their particular phrasing or an occasional illustration. Many required some degree of engagement to ensure that they were photographed and scanned in the correct order, while others appeared to deal with the insignificant or perhaps even hearsay. Only a few are lengthy, and writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries needed to be skilful in getting their information across both clearly and concisely. The letters could sometimes be quite beautiful while others are very hard to read. Perhaps we are all getting so used to reading typed or printed text that we now find handwritten letters challenging to understand; but some letters just do simply contain difficult handwriting. However, a long letter, written in a good hand on quality paper, is a real joy!

Trout fishing in America [Tylor Papers, Box 13, R.3]

Item R.3 is one such letter. Sent by Benjamin Redding from San Francisco on Central Pacific Railroad Company headed paper and dated 5 January 1882, the correspondent writes in response to a statement in Edward Tylor's book Anthropology claiming that 'only fly-fishing seems not to have been known in ancient times' (p. 214), and wishes 'to call to your attention that fly-fishing was known to at least one tribe of California Indians, when this state was first occupied by white men'. Redding, who was California Fish Commissioner, goes on to give more details of his assertion and encloses a sample of a fishing hook (see below).

Letter sent from Benjamin Barnard Redding (in San Francisco) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 5 January 1882; with its enclosure of a fly-fishing hook, now in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections [accession number: 1988.16.1].

The postal service at the end of the nineteenth century seems to have been extraordinarily regular and, apparently, reliable. The letters in the collection were sent from all over the world and typically only took around six weeks to arrive from longer distances such as Australia or Hawaii. These long-distance letters can easily be identified because they were usually franked every time they left or arrived at any port on their way to England.

Envelope enclosing a letter sent from Abraham Fornander (in Lahaina) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 24 April 1880. The postmarks can be interpreted, showing that the letter departed Lahaina, on the island of Maui, Hawaii, on 27 April; passed through Honolulu, Hawaii, on 8 May; and arrived at its final destination in Wellington, in the county of Somerset, England, on 7 June.

An interesting point of note is that some of the envelopes and letters are adorned with black borders, signalling that the correspondent was in mourning at the time of writing. Apparently, this could be the case for a year or so after a loved one's death, and was a signal to the recipient that the mourning period was still in effect.

Letter sent from Major-General Herbert Raban (in Taunton) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Wellington), dated 10 February 1878: 'Thank you for your letter of the 8th received yesterday.' The black edging on the stationery indicates that Major-General Raban was in mourning, possibly for his wife, at the time of writing.

The correspondence in the Pitt Rivers Museum's Tylor Papers comprises, for fairly obvious reasons, exclusively letters sent to Tylor rather than those written by him (which may survive in repositories elsewhere), though drafts of letters were sometimes retained by him and are therefore incorporated. The largest contributors to the correspondence held within the Tylor Papers are anthropologist Franz Boas, anthropologist Lorimer Fison, and missionary and anthropologist Alfred W. Howitt.

Franz Boas (1858–1942) [Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 1]

Franz Uri Boas was born and educated in Germany, but emigrated to the USA in 1887. He was initially interested in the Baffin Island Inuit people, but went on to develop a strong interest in the peoples of the Pacific Northwest. He became Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, in New York, in 1899. Boas was a pioneer of modern anthropology and hugely influential both during and after his lifetime; his full story is too complicated to cover in any detail here but is easily found elsewhere (e.g. article on Boas available here).

Boas conducted a correspondence with Edward Tylor lasting from 1888 to 1902, with eighteen letters now stored in Box 11A. The majority of these letters address issues regarding permissions to work in Canada and the funds to do so. But he was apparently also engaged in the promotion of anthropology as a special department at Oxford. In one letter, sent in June 1895, he comments that he has written to The Nation magazine about the 'attitude taken by the University of Oxford towards Anthropology', a campaigning effort which was soon successful because just twelve months later he wrote again to Tylor, congratulating him on overcoming the opposition in Oxford to having anthropology recognised as a separate department.

Letter sent from Franz Boas (in New York City) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 2 June 1902: 'You will remember that a number of years ago you sent me a photograph of a Haida mask consisting of a human face inside of two large folding wings, which, when closed, represent a raven. [...] You asked me at that time to ascertain the significance of this mask. It has taken me all these years to obtain the information that you desire.'

One letter from Boas to Tylor, written in June 1902 (see above), concerned a 'Raven mask' in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Edward Tylor had apparently sent a photograph of it to Franz Boas three years earlier for his analysis. The mask shown below is that referred to by Boas, and is an example of a Haida transformation mask from Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands), this example having been collected by missionary Charles Harrison during the 1880s. This mask is considered to be a masterpiece of its kind, carved by Charles Edenshaw. There is a full description and analysis of it available via the Museum's online catalogue [accession number: 1891.49.8].

Wooden transformation mask in the form of a raven with beak that opens to expose a female face inside with a crooked nose and labret. The mask is edged with feathers and fur and there is a red human figure with blue face, joined arms and pale hair that stands upright on the top of the mask.

Lorimer Fison (1832–1907) [Tylor Papers, Box 11A, Folder 2]

Lorimer Fison was born in England but emigrated to Australia in 1856, initially to the goldfields. He soon joined the Methodist Church, and it was as a missionary that he moved to Fiji in 1863, where he began his studies into the people of the islands and their social and familial practices.

Studio portrait of Lorimer Fison.

Photograph by Louis Grouzelle studio ('Grouzelle'). Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Undated, circa 1888.

Fison returned to Australia in 1871 and there began his research into the indigenous peoples of the Southeast. This led him to become acquainted with A. W. Howitt (see below). Fison returned to Fiji in 1875 but he continued his collaboration with Howitt, which eventually resulted in the publication of Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1880), recognised internationally as a major work in the development of modern anthropology. Fison returned to Australia in 1884, retired from the ministry in 1888, and continued his investigations while working as a journalist to support his family. He visited Oxford in 1894 to great acclaim, and there met Edward Tylor among other distinguished scholars. In 1905, he was granted a pension of £150 from the British government; he died in Melbourne in 1907. Much of his correspondence with Tylor covers discussion of Fijian and Australian First Nations' relationships, along with commentary of his own personal health, which often was not good, perhaps even having a nervous breakdown in 1884.

Three fish hooks from the the Solomon Islands sent by Lorimer Fison to Edward Tylor in 1883: 'I got the hooks [...] from Captain Martin of our Mission Schooner "John Hunt", & promised him that they should be presented to your Museum in his name. When you write next, please devote a small scrap of paper to an acknowledgement of receipt that I may hand it over to him as a bait to catch more.'

Fison spent much of his life studying the peoples of the Polynesian islands, based, as he was, for much of the time in Fiji; and he often sent specimens or examples of objects to Tylor in Oxford. He refers, for example, to three fish hooks from the Solomon Islands (see above) in a long letter of 17 August 1883, commenting: 'I suppose you are aware of the manner in which these hooks are used? The mother of pearl on their backs is the bait. The hooks being towed by a long line in the wake of a swiftly moving canoe, the mother of pearl looks like a small fish, & is seized upon by larger ones.'

Lorimer Fison is generally regarded as one of the four people who developed anthropology as a science in Australia, the others being A. W. Howitt, Francis Gillen and Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer, all of whom are represented in the Museum's collections.

A life well-lived: Alfred W. Howitt (1830–1908) [Tylor Papers, Box 12]

I had not previously heard of Alfred William Howitt until working through the thirty-six letters of Box 12 covering a period from 1881 to 1890. Only Lorimer Fison, friend and collaborator of A. W. Howitt, has more letters in the boxes of the Tylor Papers discussed here. Howitt's is a story of a rise from a large (but not wealthy) English middle-class family to international acclaim as an anthropologist, via Australian legend and the search for a new national capital.

Alfred W. Howitt was born in England on 17 April 1830; in 1852, he travelled with his father and brother to the goldfields of Victoria due to financial pressures. They never struck it rich, but Alfred, a geologist, rose to become Police Magistrate and Ward Crown Lands Commissioner, and later Secretary of the Mines Department.

View of the Howitt family picnicking on the Latrobe River. Alfred W. Howitt is probably the man lying on the ground at the left of the group (holding a shotgun). He subsequently sent this photograph to Edward Tylor, noting in a letter of 15 May 1888: 'I have thought that perhaps it might interest you to see what our country looks like. I have therefore sent you three photos which my daughter took last summer when we made a ten-days camping out expedition into the "Australian Alps"'.

Photograph by Mary Howitt. Latrobe River, near Sale, New South Wales, Australia. 1887.

Every Australian knows the story of Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills; it is embedded into the folklore of the country. The Burke and Wills expedition left Melbourne in 1860 with the objective of reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria, two thousand miles to the north. They made it as far as the mangroves which protect the coast, but never reached the sea itself. When they turned back, with few provisions left for the long journey ahead, the monsoon rains arrived and made their passage south much more difficult. Burke and Wills, together with a third member of the expedition, John King, made it back as far as Coopers Creek, where there were supposed to be provisions and support for the onward journey; but the support party had departed some hours prior to their arrival. It is a long and complicated story: in short, they were fed and watered by the local indigenous people, but ultimately fell out with them and started shooting at them when they came close. King got on better, and was taken in and looked after, but both Burke and Wills perished after the indigenous people had had enough and abandoned them.

An expedition was organised to find the explorers, and none other than A. W. Howitt was selected to lead it. Howitt was by this time an experienced bushman and well equipped to undertake the role. He found King alive and located the bodies of Burke and Wills, which he buried and collected on a later mission. The full story is widely available and is certainly one worth reading. It is a cruel irony that at any point they could have asked the indigenous people for help, but elected not to.

'Notes & labels on "bull-roarers"': this document, apparently drawn up by Tylor or an assistant in preparing a museum display, references various dates of Howitt's letters on the subject of bull-roarers.

Thereafter, Howitt made numerous further travels to study kinship and marriage among the indigenous tribes of Southeast Australia; and he met Lorimer Fison and wrote Kamilaroi and Kurnai. Howitt was also an acclaimed geologist and botanist, and in 1903 became a member of the Royal Commission to choose a site for the national capital of Australia. By the time of his death in 1908, Howitt was a much decorated member of the Royal Societies of New South Wales and of Victoria; and he was also elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. In his later life he undertook much work on the significance of bull-roarers, and engaged in a lengthy written correspondence with Tylor on the subject (see above).

While Howitt displayed many of the prevailing attitudes of his times, he certainly lived a full life and did much to improve the understanding of the indigenous peoples of Australia. A fuller account of his life can be found in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (available online here) among other sources. Howitt's letters cover a range of topics including Lorimer Fison's health and well-being, with which he was very concerned, but also his relationships among First Nations groups as well as more general news.

Schoolboy games [Tylor Papers, Box 11, B.8]

Edward Tylor received letters from all over the world – sometimes even from Yorkshire! There are two letters written by local historian Thomas Brayshaw regarding the practice of dart throwing. The correspondence begins with a letter addressed to Reverend George Style on 17 October 1887, stating that dart throwing was no longer practised around Settle, in North Yorkshire, but had been some years earlier when the writer was a boy at Giggleswick School. A description follows with an illustration of the technique and how it was used.

Letter sent from Thomas Brayshaw (in Settle) to Reverend George Style (in Giggleswick), dated 17 October 1887: 'Dart-throwing is not practised in this immediate neighbourhood now; but it is in some parts of Yorkshire. [...] When I was at school as a very small boy we used to practise with an ordinary arrow and a piece of string. This string had a loop at each end, the distance between them being about 9 inches. One loop we put over our first finger, the other in the notch of the arrow.'

This is followed by another letter from Brayshaw, dated 22 October 1887, confirming that '[t]hrowing an arrow with the aid of a piece of string is certainly practised in some parts of Yorkshire', and noting that 'a description of it has appeared lately in certain of the Yorkshire newspapers'. There is no information as to why Edward Tylor might have been interested in this subject, but as such devices do exist around the world – usually somewhat larger – there may have been an ongoing academic discussion regarding the method at around this time.

Letters from high places: 10 Downing Street [Tylor Papers, Box 12, Harrison.18]

Another correspondent, Frederick Parry, was appointed private secretary to Prime Minister Alfred Balfour in 1902, but he was presumably working for the Salisbury administration prior to that. In responding to a letter from Tylor requesting help for archaeologist Benjamin Harrison, Parry comments favourably: 'I need hardly say that your recommendation carries the greatest weight', presumably meaning with the prime minister. The nature of this help seems to have been, judging from other letters, an application for a civil list pension. (In addition to this letter from Whitehall, there is one letter in the collection sent to Tylor from a prison!)

Letter from Frederick Sydney Parry (in London) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 21 February 1899: 'Very many thanks for your kind letter about Mr Benjamin Harrison. I will see what can be done to help him, and I need hardly say that your recommendation carries the greatest weight'. The black ink stamp reads 'First Lord of the Treasury', indicating that the letter was sent from the Prime Minister's Office.

Benjamin Harrison (1837–1921) [Tylor Papers, Box 12]

Benjamin Harrison was an archaeologist and trader from Kent who dealt mainly in flints and eoliths. Harrison was the first person to collect eoliths, believing them to be man-made, but they were subsequently discovered to be naturally occurring stone fragments. Harrison's 'discovery' of eoliths was first publicised in Popular Science Monthly by Sir Joseph Prestwich, whose death is mentioned in the letter below. Harrison sold many flints (stone tools) to the Pitt Rivers Museum and a number of his letters in the Tylor Papers refer to this, while others offer for sale items including skeletons at twelve to fourteen guineas each, often pleading for quick payment due to financial difficulties. This letter illustrates just how difficult they can sometimes be to read. Harrison's drawings, however, are rather good and also act as a catalogue for his artefact sales.

Letter sent from Benjamin Harrison to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 24 June 1899. Many of Harrison's letters also include his drawings of the stone tools and eoliths being discussed.

Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii [Tylor Papers, Box 11, F.4]

On 9 August I was working through Box 11 and saw that the franking and handwritten heading of one letter recorded that it had been posted from 'Lahaina, Maui, Hawaiian Islands'. I would not have heard of Lahaina, or indeed have had any idea where it was, but for one awful coincidence. The day before, on 8 August 2023, the town of Lahaina had been destroyed in the terrible summer fires that raged across that part of the island of Maui.

Letter sent from Abraham Fornander (in Lahaina) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Wellington), dated 24 April 1880: 'You ask me to give you some information about the ancient Hawaiian game of draughts, called "Konane"; and, to the best of my ability, I will now comply with your request.'

The letter itself concerns the Polynesian board game of 'Konane'. The game apparently had considerable similarities with draughts (checkers), but was mainly played by chiefs and other senior figures. Crowds would watch and much betting would take place, by both the players and the spectators, but sadly the game at this time was becoming obsolete as the young people of the islands were turning away and finding other sources of entertainment.

Pen and ink drawing by Abraham Fornander of the board ('papa konane') and arrangement of pieces used in the traditional Hawaiian game of Kōnane: 'A. plays Black, B. plays White'.

Illustrations encountered in the correspondence were always a joy to find, and there are some lovely examples across the five boxes of the Tylor Papers. In this case, though, it was the description by Tylor's correspondent Abraham Fornander, with diagrams of how to play Kōnane and the accompanying text regarding who actually played the game, which were most interesting. That said, the details offered by Fornander are very difficult to follow, which prompted Tylor himself several months later to write a response asking for clarification around certain elements of gameplay, including the 'taking' of an opponent's counters.

Draft of letter sent by Edward Burnett Tylor to Abraham Fornander (in Lahaina), dated 5 September 1880, in which he attempts to clarify certain rules of Kōnane: 'Especially, you speak of the game as one of striking or taking, but how is taking done? Is it by merely taking off a neighbouring piece so that the white piece here takes the black and goes into its place, or is it done by jumping over into an empty place beyond [...]'.

Sadly, the above does all seem rather trivial when set beside the devastating fires which killed ninety-eight people, with some still unaccounted for, and almost entirely destroyed the historical town of Lahaina.

The strange case of the 'Australian Stonehenge' [Tylor Papers, Box 11, E.3]

One somewhat odd letter concerns a stone circle, or circles, near Mount Elephant in the state of Victoria, Australia. Box 11 of the Tylor Papers contains a letter from Sir John Evans, forwarding another written by Henry Hayter, with discussion of the standing stones. The surviving envelope also contains a cutting taken from The Illustrated Australian News (issue of 9 April 1877), featuring an engraving of the supposed site. A handwritten annotation on the sheet, however, records that Tylor has sent the illustration 'for inspection by the Anthropological Institute', asking that efforts 'should be taken to procure photographs, if the circles exist'. A very wise move, I think! Interestingly, no photograph was procured, and nor does any other rendering of the stones exist – a peculiar fact given that Australia was photographed extensively from the 1860s onwards. Like the Loch Ness Monster, stories of their existence are many, as too are claims that the stones were used as building material for the nearby town. Unfortunately, to this very day the stone circles themselves are yet to put in an appearance.

'Stone Circles near Mount Elephant', a woodcut engraving published in The Illustrated Australian News (9 April 1877): 'In various regions are found rude stone monuments which are a puzzle to antiquarians. [...] Mr. Ormond, in a letter to Sir J. Y. Simpson, says that he has seen many, especially near the Mount Elephant Plains in Victoria.' However, a letter received from Henry Hayter in the aftermath of this publication corrects the record: 'The circle near Mount Elephant consists, I am assured, of a mere line of small stones, not larger than loaves of bread [...]'.

The only tall standing stones universally acknowledged to exist in Australia are at Glen Innes, New South Wales, and were erected by the local tug-of-war team in 1991/2 to commemorate the contribution of Celtic settlers to Australian culture. Glen Innes hosts the annual Australian Celtic Festival in May, and the stones are a major centrepiece. All very good, but probably not something that E. B. Tylor would have been much interested in. Perhaps the closest objects in form to these alleged stones are the termite mounds of Northern Australia, or the natural limestone structures in Nambung National Park in Western Australia, both many miles away from Victoria and impossible therefore to see how there could have been any confusion.

Volunteering at the Pitt Rivers Museum

There are always two sides to any volunteer project: the work itself and the environment in which you do it. This second aspect can be equally interesting, as I found was the case on this project. Among the great joys of volunteering for the University of Oxford's Gardens, Libraries and Museums is the proximity to the amazing collections it allows, and the people you meet working with them. This is particularly the case at the Pitt Rivers Museum. In the first instance, there were the daily interactions with the museum's specialist collections staff, which one would expect. But on any typical day, when arriving in the workspace, one would likely also see a wide range of different objects retrieved by staff for visiting researchers. These could include African jewellery, Asian dolls, Maori weapons, photographic prints, objects for upcoming exhibition, prehistoric stone tools, South American pottery and a host of other things. All are extraordinary to see at such close proximity and interactions with the researchers never less than fascinating. But, in addition to all of the above, it is always interesting to witness the inside working of a world-class museum.

Page of notes and drawings enclosed with a letter sent from Francis Fox Tuckett (in Frenchay) to Edward Burnett Tylor (in Oxford), dated 17 August 1891: 'I was very sorry just to miss you & Anna yesterday, but it could not be helped, so I send you a few rough outlines (which may only prove "coals to Newcastle") of some objects in the Central Park Museum at New York which I heard one good woman describe to another as "petrified precious stones" & which are said to be at present unique.'

To finish off, amid the collection's last box of correspondence (Box 13A), I came across the page of notes shown above. Today it is easy to capture an image on a mobile device or to send a postcard of some artefact from a museum, but it required a much greater effort at the end of the nineteenth century. Initially, on encountering this sketch, it seemed almost like an idea for a CBBC television programme, but it turned out to be an illustration (the 'rough outlines') of objects seen in New York's Central Park Museum – meaning the American Museum of Natural History – by Francis Tuckett, who was Tylor's brother-in law.

Richard Stimpson

Volunteer, Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM), University of Oxford

4 December 2023

Bibliography

Keay Davidson, 'Boas, Franz', in John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds.), American National Biography, 24 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), vol. 3, pp. 83–86.

Barbara W. Freire-Marreco, 'A Bibliography of Edward Burnett Tylor from 1861 to 1907', in H. Balfour et al, Anthropological Essays Presented to Edward Burnett Tylor in Honour of His 75th Birthday (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), pp. 375–409.

Chris Holdsworth, 'Tylor, Sir Edward Burnett (1832–1917)', in H. C. G. Mathew and Brian Harrison (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000, 60 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 55, pp. 773–775.

E. F. im Thurn, revised by H. C. G. Matthew, 'Fison, Lorimer (1832–1907)', in H. C. G. Mathew and Brian Harrison (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000, 60 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 19, p. 736.

E. F. im Thurn, revised by D. J. Mulvaney, 'Howitt, Alfred William (1830–1908)', in H. C. G. Mathew and Brian Harrison (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000, 60 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 28, pp. 525–526.

R. R. Marett, Tylor (London: Chapman and Hall, 1936).

Pitt Rivers Museum, 'The Invention of Museum Anthropology, 1850–1920: Scoping the Local Material Resources for an Intellectual History of a Global Discipline', <https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/sma/index.html> (accessed 4 December 2023).

Peter Rivière (ed.), A History of Oxford Anthropology (New York: Berghahn, 2007).

Edward B. Tylor, Anthropology: An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881).

Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1871).

The Poonindie group photo: Unveiling stories from the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 15:11:00 +0000

Group portrait of Aboriginal men, women and children pictured outside the Anglican church building of Poonindie Mission.

Photograph by Samuel White Sweet. Poonindie, South Australia, Australia. Undated, circa 1880.

Taught as part of Oxford University's Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology programme, the 'Provenance Research and the Ethnographic Archive' course provides students with an opportunity to conduct original research on an artefact, photograph, sound recording, film or archival document from the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections. In addition to a full research report, students are invited to write a blog post on their discoveries.

Selecting for her project a lantern slide group portrait (accession number: 1998.384.3.22), Miranda Robson here analyses the multi-layered levels of meaning and complexity of the photograph seen above, and traces the image's journey from Australian church mission to museum repository on the other side of the world. Beginning by describing the lantern slide itself, Miranda writes:

Within the expansive photograph collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum is a lantern slide depicting forty-three people. Annotated as 'formal group by church', the photograph used on the glass slide represents a group of men, women and children wearing late nineteenth-century clothing and staring solemnly into the camera. These people are indigenous residents of the Poonindie Mission in South Australia, a remote area of land seventeen kilometres from the nearest town.

Lantern slide showing '[f]ormal group by church' (original handwritten annotation), previously owned by 'Rev. A. W. Hands'.

This singular photograph tells a myriad of interwoven stories of the colonial settlement of Australia, including European immigration, Christian missionary education and the reduction of Aboriginal culture. The group portrait captures the convergence of different histories: that of Reverend Alfred Watson Hands, the Anglican vicar who created the lantern slide; of Samuel White Sweet, the English sea captain-turned-Australian photographer; and of the numerous individuals pictured, who called the Poonindie Aboriginal Mission in South Australia their home.

Reverend Alfred Watson Hands

The lantern slide entered the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections within a larger set of slides created and used by Reverend Alfred Watson Hands (1849–1927). Hands was an English Anglican minister who lived and practised in New Zealand between 1880 and 1887. He married in New Zealand and started his family, before returning to England. He continued working as an Anglican minister, eventually passing away in 1927. He had various interests over the course of his life, from New Zealand watercolours to Iron Age British coins, but his missionary interests in the South Pacific are most prominent among the Pitt Rivers' slides.

Several letters exchanged between curator Beatrice Blackwood and Rev. Hands' daughter Margaret S. G. Macleod (née Hands) provide some context for how the lantern slides came to the Museum. MacLeod wrote to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1961 and, after she was sure there was interest in the slides, she donated the complete set of forty-one slides, of which this Poonindie slide is numbered twenty-second [accession number: 1998.384.3.22]. In one of the letters, MacLeod states that her father 'brought a number of slides with him' when he returned to England, indicating that the slides were created while he was still residing on the South Island of New Zealand.

Two pages of a letter sent by Margaret MacLeod to the Pitt Rivers Museum, 23 October 1961: 'I wonder whether some old lantern slides would be of any use to you – so old that they are probably of some historic interest by now.'

She also indicated that there could be further slides of Māori people and culture ('many of them of Maoris whom he knew & places in his district'), and that he used the slides for presentations to audiences in England ('My father lectured (with his magic-lantern) for S.P.G. [Society for the Propagation of the Gospel] all over the dioceses of Hereford, Gloucester and Bristol from 1890–1900'). It is not entirely clear what the topic of the lecture for this lantern slide collection was, but all the slides focus on Australia, and largely on indigenous Australians, including the slide of the group outside the church.

Samuel White Sweet

The original photograph used in the lantern slide was taken by Australian photographer Samuel White Sweet (1825–1886), as part of his comprehensive body of work documenting South Australian landscapes and communities.

Studio portrait of Samuel White Sweet.

Photographer unknown. Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. Undated, circa 1870.

Samuel Sweet was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1825 and joined the British navy around 1844. He moved with his wife and family to Australia in about 1863, eventually settling in Adelaide, South Australia, by 1867. He continued his maritime career as the captain of commercial and exploration vessels until an incident in 1875 where he ran his ship, the Wallaroo, aground of South Australia. An inquiry found the incident to be caused by an error of judgement, and Sweet was subsequently censured. Thereafter barred from the sea, Sweet opened a photographic studio in Adelaide. He became a prolific photographer of South Australian landscapes, city scenes and rural life. Sweet died on 4 January 1886, succumbing to heat stroke near the South Australian town of Riverton.

Page from an album showing the 'Poonindie group photo' discussed (top) with another print of agricultural machinery in Poonindie (bottom).

Photographs by Samuel White Sweet. Poonindie, South Australia, Australia. Undated, circa 1880.

The original photograph reproduced in the lantern slide was included in a photograph album of Samuel White Sweet's work gifted to the chaplain for Bishop Kennion in 1886. The volume is now held in the State Library of South Australia, and the print itself is annotated as being taken at 'Poonindie', an indigenous mission in South Australia. The photograph was taken by Sweet most likely around 1880, during a journey down the Eyre Peninsula where the Poonindie reservation was located.

Poonindie Indigenous Mission

The Poonindie Mission was founded by Archdeacon Mathew Blagden Hale, supported by the Bishop of Adelaide. Inspired by the anti-slavery movement, Hale established Poonindie as a training institution with principles of Christianity and practical skills. Seventeen kilometres from the nearest settlement, and a further six hundred kilometres by land to Adelaide, the mission was purposefully isolated from indigenous and settler communities to keep residents from the 'corrupting influence of their parents' and other community members. The first 'successes' of the mission came in 1853, when eleven residents were baptised, becoming the first Australian Aboriginal people to be recorded converting to Christianity. Subsequent superintendents followed the founding ethos of Christianity and education until 1882, when a more authoritarian superintendent, J. D. Bruce, was appointed. Many indigenous residents lost previous privileges, and increased arguments between Aboriginal people and staff pushed many long-term residents to leave. Bruce remained in the role until the mission was closed in 1894 due to pressure from local settlers for the land, and the property was subsequently subdivided.

Woodcut print of Mathew Blagden Hale, portrayed at around the time of his appointment as Bishop of Brisbane.

Artist unknown. Circa 1875.

Poonindie existed within a larger context of European and South Australian settler colonisation. South Australia was founded as a colony in 1836, and immediately a system of Aboriginal Protectorates was established. This system, while intended ostensibly to protect Aboriginal people in the developing settlement, could often be violent and exploitative. Missions provided refuge from hostile white populations and the harshness of rural settler life, but they could also be places of harsh discipline and oftentimes forced relocation. Australian church historian Keith Cole indicates that, while the initial phase of indigenous missions in Australia was widely unsuccessful, the second phase from the 1850s onwards lasted more than a century. These missions were established to 'smooth the pillow of a dying race': the assimilation of indigenous people into settler society, most likely as labourers for white colonists, until they 'died out'.

The continuing existence of Aboriginal people and culture demonstrates how incorrect this belief was. Even in the 1880s, when the photograph was taken, indigenous residents were marrying, having families and finding ways to maintain their traditions. It is difficult to determine the exact subjects of the photograph, as it was common to leave and return to Poonindie – whether by choice or by force as a punishment – and these movements were generally not recorded. Because of this, it is hard to determine who is featured in the photograph. While some long-term residents were likely included, such as the Adams and Solomon brothers, and some couples with their children, there is no written record of who was residing at Poonindie in 1880.

Group portrait of Aboriginal men, women and children pictured outside the Anglican church building of Poonindie Mission.

Photograph by Samuel White Sweet. Poonindie, South Australia, Australia. Undated, circa 1880.

Despite the uncertainty of the subjects and who their descendants have been, the photograph has been included in previous repatriation projects. Through the Pitt Rivers Museum's collaboration with 'Returning Photos: Australian Aboriginal Photographs from European Collections', a project which collates digitised images of indigenous Australians for easier access by their descendants, this picture is readily accessible by indigenous groups around Australia. Project co-ordinator Donna Oxenham, a Yamatji woman, empathises with the profound impact of such photographs on communities, serving as 'living proof' of the continuing culture of indigenous Australians despite 'tremendous adversity'. These images, though frequently painful as well as revealing, can have positive impacts on individuals and the larger collaboration towards truth-telling and reconciliation.

The 'Poonindie group photo' is a testament to the intertwined histories of colonialism, mission life and indigenous resilience in Australia. It encapsulates the efforts of Reverend Alfred Watson Hands and Samuel White Sweet in documenting and disseminating images of indigenous Australians, while also serving as a stark reminder of the cultural upheavals and challenges faced by the Poonindie Mission residents. Despite the hardships they faced, the photograph's inclusion in repatriation projects highlights its enduring significance. The group portrait in front of the Poonindie church is not just a static image in a museum collection but a piece of living history, integral to understanding and acknowledging Australia's complex past.

Miranda Robson

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Sc.)

13 September 2024

"My Japanese": Researching the provenance of a printed book in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 08:38:00 +0000

Selecting for her project a printed book titled 'My Japanese' (accession number: 1958.2.3), Anna Malpas here describes the distinctive style of paper used by the Japanese publisher, before going on to identify the unnamed author of the volume and also placing it within the context of a late nineteenth-century engagement with the West and national drive to 'modernisation'. Beginning by describing the physical characteristics of the book itself, Anna writes:

For every item on display in the Pitt Rivers Museum, hundreds more are carefully stored behind the scenes. Excellent conservation means that some objects look almost unchanged from the day they entered the collections. For the last eight weeks I have had the privilege of tracing the story of an incredibly well preserved book that has been in the Museum's collections since 1958.

Printed book titled 'My Japanese': front and back covers.

Bound with light blue silk, My Japanese describes itself as 'A Topical Song of Japan', taking readers through Japanese greetings, visits to a tea house, rickshaw rides, souvenir shopping, beggars and passport checks. The book begins with a musical score, and then a series of thematic double page spreads provide verses for the song, with a pronunciation guide and glossary to explain the Japanese terminology. The pages are vibrant and well illustrated with detailed woodblock prints.

'My Japanese' musical score and page eight illustration.

Page seventeen lyrics with 'glossary'.

My Japanese is a striking example of a genre of Japanese book known as 'chirimenbon', commonly known in English as crêpe paper books. These books were made using traditional Japanese bookbinding and printing techniques. However, most interestingly, they utilised a special method of moistening the pages with persimmon paste, wrapping them in a mould, and pressing them to treat the paper. The repetitive, extreme pressure exerted on the pages at different angles eventually gave them a texture likened to the creases in Japanese chirimen silk.

Close-up of creases in the paper used in the book.

The fabric-like materiality of the paper made these books particularly sought after in the foreign market. They were incredibly popular, with even famous artists such as Van Gogh keeping crêpe paper prints on the walls of his home. The books were produced almost exclusively for foreign markets – printed in English and other foreign languages and laid out to be read from left to right instead of the Japanese right-to-left format.

Most crêpe paper books were published by Takejiro Hasegawa, an entrepreneurial publisher who collaborated with woodblock print artisans and foreign residents to create a series of books focused on Japanese legends and fairy tales. My Japanese appears to be one of the few notable surviving exceptions, as Hasegawa does not seem to have been directly involved in the production of the book.

Colophon, with printing and publication details for 'My Japanese', on the back cover of the book.

The colophon, found on the back cover's lower right-hand corner (see above), suggests instead that this book was published by a company called Isetatsu, located in Tokyo's Kanda Ward. Isetatsu is what is known as shinise in Japanese. These shops are often family businesses that have been trading for at least a hundred years. Isetatsu itself was founded in 1864 and still creates paper products today (website). The text inscribed on the back cover is also notable because it includes the name of Hirose Sei – the wife of Hirose Tatsugoro. Gender politics at the time would have made it unlikely that she would have been leading the family business herself. However, the use of her name could be attributed to the relative youth of the next generation. Seventeen-year-old Hirose Kanezaburo was likely still learning the trade after the recent death of his father.

Another curious mystery of this book is the identity of the author. Working with foreign authors was a common practice for publishers like Takejiro Hasegawa. Lafacadio Hearn and Basil Hall Chamberlain were just two of the famous foreign authors who collaborated on the Hasegawa books. While the printers are credited in Japanese on the colophon, the author is credited in English on the front cover. This suggests that a foreign resident was also involved in the conception, writing and publication of My Japanese.

Author attribution ('S. L. G.') on the book's front cover.

It is highly likely that the mysterious 'S. L. G.' was Sidney Lewis Gulick, a missionary working in Japan around the same time as the publication of the book. Gulick was a proficient Japanese speaker and spent most of his later years campaigning for understanding between Japan and America. The use of Japanese in the book, while at times simple and direct, suggests that the text was written by someone with a solid understanding of the colloquial Japanese terminology of the time. Gulick was also a competent singer, so the creation of the score would likely have also been relatively simple for him.

Portrait of Sidney L. Gulick at the time of his retirement.

Photographer unknown. United States of America. 1934.

Source: Sandra C. Taylor, Advocate of Understanding: Sidney Gulick and the Search for Peace with Japan (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1984), frontispiece.

While there are several copies of the book in various private collections, libraries and museums around the world, this copy of My Japanese was donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1958 by a 'Miss Coltart'. The Pitt Rivers Museum's accession register records that Catherine Gladys Coltart donated the book after it was collected by her brother, Alan Herbert Coltart, in 1907.

Alan Coltart matriculated (i.e. began studying) at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1903 and was an active member of college life and rowing societies. Coltart travelled to Asia in 1906, where he likely acquired the book. A passenger list from 1906 suggests that he engaged passage from London to Japan on the S.S. Arcadia.

Alan Herbert Coltart (detail) pictured among his Exeter College rowing crew (Torpids week).

Photographer unknown. Oxford, England. 1903.

Source: Exeter College Archives, Alumni Album EC/15/11.

Later, Coltart continued his studies as part of Oxford's Anthropology Diploma course, during which time he also contributed to the Oxford University Anthropological Society. Unfortunately, Coltart's academic pursuits were curtailed by the outbreak of the First World War. He was subject to one of the earliest German gas attacks during the first battle of Ypres, which ended his active military service. He finished the war working in intelligence roles, and never really recovered from the duodenal damage he suffered in the gas attack.

Coltart and his family eventually settled in Dorchester, where he took an active role in supporting local heritage societies. Alan Coltart died in a Dorchester facility in 1937 after a short, one-week illness. In honour of his memory, his sister Catherine Gladys Coltart established a scholarship in his name in 1937. The Alan Coltart Scholarship (Exeter College) was designed to help ambitious anthropology graduate students to pursue their academic careers.

(Catherine) Gladys Coltart was also personally interested in anthropology. Passenger manifests suggest that she joined her brother and future sister-in-law's family on a trip to Asia from Vancouver on the Empress of China in 1911. In her later years she also maintained a consistent correspondence with Beatrice Blackwood at the Pitt Rivers Museum. These records suggest that many of her brother's possessions were left to her, and she donated a significant amount of material to the Museum. In one letter to Blackwood (see below), she mentions copying some of his old letters about Japan and its 'dying' customs.

Letter from C. Gladys Coltart to Beatrice Blackwood, 22 June [no year given, circa 1958–1966]: 'I began to copy some of my brother's letters on Japan before he went away. His account of customs then dying out are most interesting.'

The comments about Japan's 'dying' customs were certainly not a unique perception among international visitors to Japan at the time. The publication of My Japanese was also part of a broader movement in the Meiji era (1868–1912) known as bunmei-kaika, or the 'civilisation and enlightenment' movement. In 1870, the publisher Isetatsu began to lean into this movement, as Japanese government officials tried to push an agenda of 'Westernisation' and increased connection with the wider world. Isetatsu engaged more in the export of their paper products, and the local community of woodblock printers meant that they were able to create and package attractive products for international consumption.

During this period of modernisation, the Japanese nation-building effort led to a new conception of Japanese tradition, with some practices such as Noh being venerated as the Japanese equivalent to opera, and others such as Kabuki being derided for their decadent storytelling. Chirimenbon such as My Japanese may have been purchased for their perceived 'authenticity' by international audiences, when they were really a revival and repackaging of printing techniques that had fallen out of local favour.

When Gladys Coltart donated My Japanese to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1958, it is unlikely that she would have been aware of the political contexts of nation- and empire-building attached to the book. However, this is one of the reasons why it is important to revisit provenance research as we learn more about the historical relationships and tensions between people and their material culture.

Anna Malpas

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Phil.)

14 August 2024

Bibliography

C. Enomoto, Chirimenbon to shidonī Ruisu gyūrikku senkyōshi (Yokohama: Study Society of Protestant Christianity History in Yokohama, 2016), pp. 5–7.

Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

S. L. G. [Sidney Lewis Gulick], My Japanese: A Topical Song of Japan (Tokyo: Isetatsu, 1895).

A. S. Hartrick, A Painter's Pilgrimage Through Fifty Years (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939).

Sandra C. Taylor, Advocate of Understanding: Sidney Gulick and the Search for Peace with Japan (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1984).

Apatani, 1946: Film footage by Ursula Graham Bower and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 10:38:00 +0000

Montage of stills from 16 mm film footage shot by Ursula Graham Bower and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf in Northeast India in 1946.

Selecting for her project a documentary film without sound (accession number: 2014.24.1), Menia Taba here examines the meaning and context of the film, from its creation to diffusion. Undertaking ethnographic fieldwork to the region, she also looks at what the people depicted in the film make of it today. Beginning with an intriguing conversation held between community elders, Menia writes:

"Soping Yapar and Laling Yalu ... they were always trekking in the hilltops", said a Nyishi elder of Chullyu village; "Laling Yalu used to bring salt with them", the Apatani elder added. There was something peculiar about this conversation, because the Nyishi and the Apatani people hiked in the foothills and salt was not readily available in those days. I had these conversations with the elders in their villages while carrying out provenance research for a documentary film in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections labelled 'Ursula Graham Bower: Apatani Part 1'. The film footage was broadcast as part of the BBC television programme 'Travellers' Tales' on 29 February 1956.

The description in the Pitt Rivers Museum's catalogue notes that the 16 mm footage was filmed by Ursula Graham Bower in 1946, when she moved to the Subansiri district in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeastern India, following her husband's appointment as Political Officer in the area; they lived among the Apatani and Nyishi people for two years. 'Soping' and 'Yapar' were the local names for Colonel Frederick Nicholson Betts and Ursula Graham Bower (also known by her married name as Ursula Graham Betts) among the Apatani and Nyishi people. 'Laling' and 'Yalu' were the local names given to Austrian anthropologist Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and his wife Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf.

The above discussion was about the film made by Ursula Graham Bower – so why did 'Laling Yalu' also appear in our conversations? As I traced the film's provenance, I searched for an answer to this question. A major part of the process was to find out 'who', 'where', 'when', 'how' and 'why' the film came into existence, and how it ended up among the film collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum.

'Ursula Graham Bower: Apatani Part 1': filmed in the Apatani Valley of Arunachal Pradesh (previously North-East Frontier Tract), India, in 1946.

The documentary film's content is varied but often includes ethnographic details. The footage, for example, features thematic shots of crossing rivers and forest trails, a Nyishi man held as a prisoner, a scenic view of the landscape with Apatani village, Kago Tajo displaying his earrings, the Apatani agricultural cycle, the Apatani Ropi ritual before an expedition to Licha village, and Betty Haimendorf paying salt to the porters. Most importantly, it captures history through the film camera lens. While researching in the archives, I discovered that the film's maker was not only Ursula Graham Bower but also Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. The central clues in the film were the glimpses of the Nyishi prisoner (Dur Sera) and of Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf paying salt to the porters.

Two portraits of a Nyishi prisoner – identified as a man named Dur Sera – pictured in wooden leg stocks on the roof of an Apatani house.

Photographs by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. Apatani Valley, Lower Subansiri, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1945.

The Nyishi man imprisoned with a wooden leg stocks is mentioned by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf in his Tour Diary of 1945. The individual was named Dur Sera, who was held prisoner in an Apatani village during the Nyishi-Apatani intertribal dispute; the two photographs above, as well as the film footage of the same man, were taken by Fürer-Haimendorf. The film was subsequently edited together with other shots by Bower, who was already familiar with collecting visual ethnographic data in the Naga Hills.

Entry from Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf's printed tour diary of Subansiri district for 29 April 1945: 'This morning I went to see the prisoners and found Dur Sera on the veranda of Nendin Tagum's house, talking animatedly to several Apa Tani women. He sat on the railing with his left foot in a heavy log, which he lifted with a string when he wanted to move. But otherwise he looked extremely well and seems quite cheerful.'

Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Hutton Papers, Box 2 [Mss.Hutt.2]: 'Tour Diaries of the Special Officer Subansiri, 1944–45', p. 131.

The caption for Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf's photograph of Dur Sera, published shortly afterwards in The Illustrated London News, reads: 'An Apa Tani prisoner of war: a Dafla [Nyishi] tribesman, captured in a raid and prevented from escaping by a sort of semi-portable "stocks."'

Source: Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, 'The Valley of the Unknown', Illustrated London News, 8 November 1947, p. 527.

Also important were the cameras they brought with them, which necessitated porters to carry luggage through hilly terrain that was neither motorable nor passable using other forms of transport. These tribal porters were mostly Apatani, Nyishi and Galo, who were paid in cash, cloth and other commodities brought from the Assam plains. Sometimes they were paid with salt, which was demanded among the tribal villages.

Entry from Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf's handwritten tour diary of Subansiri district for 10 April 1944: 'At last a group of small boys sent from Hang arrived and, with the help of a few odd men picked up from spectators on promises of payment in salt, we started.'

The film depicts a European woman engaging in negotiations with tribal porters (see below). As we watched the film with some villagers from Hija in Ziro Valley, one man astutely pointed out that 'Yalu' (Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf) was distributing salt. This observation was proved correct when I found photographs of Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf paying the porters with sacks of salt in the Fürer-Haimendorf Collection at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Furthermore, the practice of compensating the porters with salt was extensively documented in her husband's tour diary.

Above and below: frame from the 'Apatani' documentary film (above) and related photograph (below) here juxtaposed.

Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf supervising the payment of salt as wages to Apatani and Nyishi porters.

Photograph by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. Apatani Valley, Lower Subansiri, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1944–1945.

The film as edited includes footage shot by both Ursula Graham Bower and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, and was a joint anthropological project that made a general ethnographic account of the Apatani of the Lower Subansiri district in Arunachal Pradesh, India. When broadcast by the BBC's 'Travellers' Tales' programme, the film was introduced by both Bower and Fürer-Haimendorf as presenters. When exactly the film arrived in the Pitt Rivers Museum remains slightly unclear, but what we do know is that it was donated to the Museum by Bower from her personal collection. But who were and why did these two ethnologists travel to the Nyishi Hills and stay in the Aaptani Valley?

Portrait of Ursula Violet Graham Betts (née Bower). Bower published several books under her maiden name, and as a consequence is more commonly known by this than by her married name.

Photographer unknown. Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1947–1948.

Although Ursula Graham Bower was not formally trained as an anthropologist, she lived and worked in the Naga Hills and the Apatani Valley as an anthropologist. In 1946, her husband Colonel Frederick Nicholson Betts was appointed as Political Officer for Subansiri district. He was tasked to select a site for a semi-permanent base, then would receive a year's supply of food by airdrop, before travelling among the tribes with the aim of creating good diplomatic relations and gaining a geographical understanding of the area. The detached force of Assam Rifles was to enforce the 'Pax Britannica'. Bower documented their stay from 1946 to March 1948 in Subsansiri district in her book The Hidden Land published in 1953.

Kago Bida (left), Chiging Nyime (foreground) and Colonel Frederick ('Tim') Betts watching an air supply drop.

Photograph by Ursula Graham Bower. Yatchuli, Subansiri, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1946–1948.

By contrast, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf was an academically trained anthropologist who stayed in the Apatani Valley before Colonel Betts was posted to the region. He had received his education in anthropology and archaeology in Vienna and later became professor of anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. After spending some time with other tribal communities in India, he was appointed as Special Officer of the Subansiri district. He was assigned the task of investigating the extent of Tibetan influence and establishing friendly ties with the Apatani people. After his first stay in the Apatani Valley, he published his fieldwork titled Ethnographic Notes on the Tribes of the Subansiri Region (1947). With subsequent visits to the Apatani Valley, he went on to publish further books Himalayan Barbary (1955), The Apa Tanis and Their Neighbours (1962) and A Himalayan Tribe: From Cattle to Cash (1980).

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf pictured holding a cat.

Photographer unknown. Lower Subansiri, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 1944.

The documentary film was shot in the Subansiri administrative district of Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India, a region now mainly split between Keyi Panyor and Lower Subansiri districts. With its geographical proximity to China and Tibet and the looming World War Two tensions, the region was strategically chosen for gradual infiltration of the British Indian colonial administration.

The film, which was produced to construct an ethnographic account of the tribes, is now preserved in cold storage in the Pitt Rivers Museum. The critical stance of the film is an overall denial of coevalness of the Apatani and Nyishi peoples of the Lower Subansiri and Keyi Panyor regions. In her book The Hidden Land, Bower writes of the Apatani as '[t]he tribe, whose culture Dr. Haimendorf had described as virtually late Neolithic'. Finding the provenance of the film also meant looking at the contemporary position of the film among the local population. Taking these questions, I returned to the valley where Bower and Fürer-Haimendorf stayed over seventy-five years ago.

Two views of Ziro Valley in Arunachal Pradesh: one a frame from the film (left), one recently taken by the author of this blog article (right).

I reached Ziro Valley during the early summer. I was there to inform a family about an Apatani elder who is glimpsed briefly in the film. They mentioned not knowing that their father also appeared in the film; photographs of the same man feature in the Bower collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum. While some among the community acknowledged that they had watched the digitised video on the Internet, others watched it here for the first time, with a sense of nostalgia, noting how the people knotted their hair and how certain rituals were performed.

At present the film is shifting its affordances among the Apatani and the Nyishi with its redistribution on YouTube and other video sharing platforms, with a focus particularly on tribal identity. There is much more to this reel of 16 mm film footage than a colonial anthropological work preserved in a museum freezer. Instead, it is now being reshaped through different narratives that weave together stories inspired by the muted people, or silent subjects, of the original film.

Menia Taba

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Sc.)

13 September 2024

Bibliography

Ursula Graham Bower, The Hidden Land (London: John Murray, 1953).

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, A Himalayan Tribe: From Cattle to Cash (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Ethnographic Notes on the Tribes of the Subansiri Region (Shillong: Assam Government Press, 1947).

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Himalayan Barbary (London: John Murray, 1955).

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, The Apa Tanis and Their Neighbours: A Primitive Society of the Eastern Himalayas (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962).

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, 'The Valley of the Unknown: A Unique and Self-created Civilisation, Revealed in a Hitherto Unknown Community Recently Discovered in the Borderlands between India and Tibet', The Illustrated London News, 8 November 1947, pp. 526–529.

View of "apartheid's festival": Bryan Heseltine's photographs of the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair of 1952

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 08 May 2024 13:24:00 +0000

In this blog article, curatorial assistant Oliver Anthony looks at a series of photographs taken by Bryan Heseltine of the Van Riebeeck Festival, which took place in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1952. Analysing the material for what it says about the festival's goals and aims, as well as its practical consequences, and placing it in the context of the National Party government's apartheid-era policies, Ollie writes:

This blog article – the second of two on the subject of the Bryan Heseltine collection held at the Pitt Rivers Museum (first article available here) – explores a sub-series of negatives and prints produced during Heseltine's attendance at an historically fraught event: the South African 'Van Riebeeck Festival' of 1952.

View of an artistic display at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

The Van Riebeeck Festival was problematic for numerous reasons, not least because of its claim that South Africa was founded by Jan Van Riebeeck, a white, Dutch colonial administrator, in 1652. Moreover, the festival attracted criticism for its 'South-West Africa Pavilion' (SWA) and Pavilion of the Native Affairs Department (NAD) which contained displays of living people – including their food, dress and architecture – in supposedly 'natural' settings. Such displays bear likeness to the 'human zoos' (sometimes referred to as 'ethnological expositions' or 'living displays') of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century world fairs, notably those in Chicago in 1893 and St. Louis in 1904. These exhibits contrived a dichotomy between the supposed inferiority of indigenous cultures as opposed to the implied superiority of European civilisation, with living people turned into commodities for visual consumption as a result.

Bryan Heseltine's photographic legacy offers an opportunity to reflect critically upon the Van Riebeeck Festival and its living displays. With a close reading of Heseltine's photographs, specifically his preferred method of portraiture, it is possible: (1.) to consider how agency can be reimbued to the indigenous people displayed at the Van Riebeeck Festival; (2.) to counter the colonial gaze of the National Party government in 1952; and (3.) to shed light on the socio-cultural climate that led to the festival's displays.

Before continuing, a comment should be made about the handling and presentation of photographs showing living displays. Darren Newbury has already highlighted the troubling task of displaying these photographs in a 2013 exhibition of Heseltine's collection held at the Pitt Rivers Museum, emphasising the need to counter the representational power of the state passed on to us through such photographs. In the context of this blog article, I have accompanied images with captions that contextualise them in relation to the Van Riebeeck Festival.

Van Riebeeck Festival: 'The Festival Fair'

From March to April 1952 Cape Town became a platform for the newly elected National Party government to stage the Van Riebeeck Festival, an attempt to bolster pride in South Africa's colonial heritage and to showcase the nation's contribution to the world. With street pageants, music and drama performances, and a vast Festival Fair, the occasion was intended to rival the success of the Festival of Britain held a year earlier. The Festival Fair, the most visited venue throughout the duration of the festivities, was arranged on the Atlantic Foreshore, an area of more than fifty acres (today the harbour and rail yards of Cape Town).

View of the 'Gold Mining Industry Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

The 'Smelt House' where festival-goers could watch real gold poured every half hour, part of the 'Gold Mining Industry Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Crowds of 800,000 people swelled beyond the Foreshore's capacity, enjoying the variety of amusements and activities on offer, including fairground rides, cinemas and numerous exhibitions. The 'Gold Mining Industry Pavilion', considered a 'must' by the Cape Times, received thousands of visitors eager to see real gold poured every half an hour and a 'realistic true-size gold mine with Natives working in stopes' (Cape Times, 14 March 1952).

View of the 'Diamond Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair, with statues of Jan Van Riebeeck, Cecil Rhodes and (possibly) Paul Kruger above the entranceway.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Men demonstrating the process of diamond extraction in front of a painted backdrop, with visitors watching from behind a barrier, at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

At one end of the largest exhibition hall, festival-goers could view industrial displays relating to coal mining, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, while at the opposing end displays relating to science, technology and education were presented. Noteworthy, too, were the entire pavilions dedicated to diamonds, sugar and gold, a celebration of South Africa's footing as the world's largest producer of gems and precious metals.

An exhibition by the Shell Company, leaders in the South Africa oil production, also included a cinema and paper sculptures, described as 'perhaps the most advanced example of this form of art', pointing to the commercial and cultural interest in the festival (Cape Times, 256 March 1952).

View of the 'Shell Company of South Africa Limited Pavilion' containing an exhibition dedicated to oil production and a cinema.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Interior of the 'Shell Pavilion' showing an exhibition of paper sculptures depicting Shell's 'Driveway Service'.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

One of five paper sculptures, considered 'perhaps the most advanced example of this form of art' (Cape Times, 26 March 1952), displayed in Shell's 'Driveway Service' exhibition at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

The official festival guidebook (see bibliography below) hints at the ubiquity of Jan Van Riebeeck within Cape Town's domestic landscape, with the release of a new 'Van Riebeeck Model' vacuum cleaner by Rollnick & Gordon Ltd., and a 'Van Riebeeck Suite' established by Sterling Furnishers. The figurative presence of Jan Van Riebeeck within the domestic lives and interior spaces of white South African residents points to a fostering of pride in Afrikaner heritage, an ideology only further encouraged by the National Party government's staging of the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

View of the 'United Kingdom Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair. The Pavilion is fronted with a large pagoda bearing the flag of the United Kingdom, together with an exhibition dedicated to parliamentary history surrounded by a glass display containing Michael O'Connell's 'Diversity of British Farming' wall-hangings (currently held as part of the Museum of English Rural Life's collections in Reading, England) and a model of the Royal Navy's 'Victory'.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Much like the world fairs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an object-centred approach was used to transform cultures, including those of settler countries, into something that could be visually consumed according to a strict institutional gaze. The 'United Kingdom Pavilion', for instance, was popular for its displays borrowed from the Festival of Britain, including an exhibition dedicated to parliamentary history, a large-scale model of HMS Victory, and a vast agricultural wall hanging by artist Michael O'Connell (now held in the collections of the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, and about which more can be read in another blog article here).

View of 'Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh', a reconstruction of a fictional English village inspired by a BBC programme of the same name. The village includes a Norman church, village green, traditional Tudor-style buildings with thatched roofs and an Old English 'Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe'.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Further prominent features at the Festival Fair were reconstructions of the Dutch town of Culemborg, described as 'the birthplace of Jan van Riebeeck [with] the very latest of Holland's modern achievements', and a small fictional English village, Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, 'such as can be seen in the Southern Counties of England'.

Finally, a short distance away from the European pavilions were the so-called 'native' displays, forming part of the 'South-West Africa Pavilion' and the 'Pavilion of the Native Affairs Department', where living people were transformed into attractions for the amusement and education of the festival's primarily white visitors.

Displays of indigenous people at the Festival Fair: 'South-West Africa Pavilion' and 'Pavilion of the Native Affairs Department'

Organisers intended the 'living displays' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair to display indigenous people in a supposedly 'primitive' state, a demonstration of purportedly scientific-backed cultural and biological claims to racial difference. The prominent displays of 'native villages' in the 'South-West Africa' (SWA) and 'Native Affairs Department' (NAD) pavilions, with !Kung and Ndebele groups performing traditional cultural practices and living in reconstructed houses, thus served only to reinforce deeply entrenched colonial stereotypes and racial prejudices.

The so-called 'Bushman Exhibition' in the 'South-West Africa Pavilion' was organised by prominent writer and anthropologist P. J. Schoeman, a 'prophet of conservation in Southern Africa'. Schoeman, commended by Bronisław Malinowski for his 'real sympathy with the natives', strongly resisted the supposed eventual extinction of hunter-gatherer peoples and proposed preserving and separating 'bushman races' into reserves to ensure continued racial purity.

A group of five !Kung men transported from northern Namibia to the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair by prominent writer and anthropologist P. J. Schoeman for display in the so-called 'native' section of the 'South-West Africa Pavilion'. The men were given provisions to make bows and arrows which were later sold to festival visitors as mementoes or keepsakes.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Schoeman arranged for seventeen !Kung men, women and children from northern Namibia to be transported to Cape Town for display in the 'South-West Africa Pavilion', selected based upon their supposed likeness to those encountered by Van Riebeeck upon his arrival in South Africa in 1652. The 'volunteers', as Schoeman referred to them, lived, slept and ate in the SWA pavilion for the duration of the three-week fair. Festival organisers also provided them with the necessary provisions to make bows, arrows and bead necklaces which were then sold to crowds of visitors who looked at, touched, spoke with and gifted food and money to the !Kung group.

View of a woman bedding straw into a reconstructed Zulu-style beehive hut in the 'Tribal Life Courtyard', the first of three sections in the 'Bantu Pavilion' erected by the Union Department of Native Affairs at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair. The display was intended to show native people in their supposedly 'natural' settings, contrasted by a modern home in the 'Progress Courtyard' of the pavilion.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Unlike the SWA pavilion, the 'Native Affairs Department' exhibit was organised by the Union Department of Native Affairs with its intended emphasis on the 'progress' and 'education' of indigenous groups. The 'Bantu Pavilion', the main feature of the NAD exhibit, was split into three courtyards: the 'Tribal Life Courtyard' (see above and below) where visitors looked upon an Ndebele family from Pretoria in traditional dress and housed in Zulu-style beehive huts; a so-called 'native school', constructed in European style, where visitors observed a native teacher, Mr Diau, instructing a class of students from Besonvale Institution in Herschel; and the 'Progress Courtyard', comprising a native clinic, productive farming methods and modern home, built room by room by 'Bantu pupils of state training'.

An Ndebele woman and two children, sitting, eating bread amid straw in the 'Tribal Life Couryard' of the 'Bantu Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair. Another group sits behind looking towards the camera.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

The 'Native Affairs Department' pavilion reaffirmed the National Party government's claims to indigenous advancement through European methods of consolidation and assimilation, while at the same time emphasising traditional practice and architecture, so reinforcing a 'preservation' ethic: that indigenous groups needed managing and separating to ensure their continued survival.

Bryan Heseltine's photographs: A resistance to conformity

In People Apart: 1950s Cape Town Revisited, a photo book of Bryan Heseltine's collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Amanda Hopkinson noted that a closer look at Heseltine's photographs reveals a somewhat complex relationship with the people depicted within them. Looking at a series of portraits produced by Heseltine, such a method can be used to consider his relative position to the people displayed at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair, as well as to critically reflect upon the colonial narratives disseminated by the festival's organisers in its displays.

Portraits of a !Kung man posing with a whittled bow in a reconstructed straw hut in the 'South-West Africa Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair. Festival organisers provided materials to the !Kung group in the SWA pavilion to make bows, arrows and egg-shell bead necklaces, which were later sold to the festival's primarily white visitors.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

While Heseltine's reasons for attending the Fair remain unclear, it is possible to speculate that he was taking photographs in fulfilment of a commission by a local newspaper or social reform group; or, like his earlier work in townships around Cape Town, as a personal project to reflect on the conditions faced by black South Africans facing the full force of the apartheid government. In either case, many of his photographs appear to have been produced prior to the festival's official opening, shedding light on its underlying architecture and layout, as well as offering intimate glimpse at the indigenous people who took centre stage in the 'native' pavilions.

Portrait of a !Kung man in the 'South-West Africa Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

Portraits of a young !Kung woman, one of seventeen people transported from northern Namibia by anthropologist and writer P. J. Schoeman for display in the 'South-West Africa Pavilion' at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

In a series of portraits (those below being two examples), Heseltine shows a young Ndebele woman shoring up a cracked wall in the 'Tribal Life Courtyard' of the 'Pavilion of the Native Affairs Department'. The woman resists conforming to the 'nativist' gaze of colonial photography, typically characterised by undertones of danger, solemness and primitive culture; instead, she can be seen smiling and laughing at the camera, a lean towards an expression of emotion and reaction and a resistance to enforced commodification by the festival's organisers. The photographs can also be interpreted as a moment of mutual connection between photographer and photographed, a sense of immediacy pointing to a 'considered attempt to counter the representational power of the state'.

Portraits of a young Ndebele woman smiling at the camera in the 'Bantu Pavilion', a reconstructed, supposed 'natural' exhibition organised by the Union Department of Native Affairs at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1952.

While there is a certain aesthetic quality to Heseltine's photographs verging on the sympathetic or romantic, they mark an unreserved departure from the lens of nativism or exoticism typified by other forms of photography at the time. In contrast to the colonial stereotypes perpetuated by the National Party government in South Africa, Heseltine's photographs depict indigenous people at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair as forthright and perceptive, providing a glimpse into how indigenous people resisted objectification simply by being there.

Conclusion

From their establishment by proclaimed experts (P. J. Schoeman and the Native Affairs Department), the 'South-West Africa' and 'Native Affairs Department' pavilions at the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair provided a footing upon which the National Party government's colonial narratives were deployed. While their prominent displays of indigenous architecture were only temporary in their duration, the ideology rooted behind them was far hardier and longer-lasting.

Yet Bryan Heseltine's photographic legacy problematises the narrative of the festival's organisers. Despite his true intentions remaining unclear, Heseltine's mix of highly aware portrait shots, together with some more general landscape and group shots taken of the displays at the Festival Fair, provide an opportunity to focus on the agency of indigenous people and their resistance to objectification in displays of the Van Riebeeck Festival. In this sense, the most distinctive feature of Heseltine's photographs is their documentary – rather than purely aesthetic – value, providing a wider footing to counter the colonial gaze of the National Party government in 1952.

Oliver Anthony

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

28 February 2024

This is the second of two blog articles by Oliver Anthony on the subject of the Bryan Heseltine collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. His first article, titled 'Views of Cape Town: Cataloguing Bryan Heseltine's Collection of Commercial and Studio Photographs (1948–1952)', is available online here. A further, related article, titled 'From Britain to South Africa (and Back Again)' – about Michael O'Connell's 'Diversity of British Farming' wall-hangings, now at the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading – is available here.

Bibliography

Robert Gordon, '"Tracks Which Cannot Be Covered": P. J. Schoeman and Public Intellectuals in Southern Africa', Historia, 52 (2007), pp. 98–126.

Darren Newbury, 'An Invitation to Visit Windermere: Moments of Departure and Return in the Biography of the Bryan Heseltine Collection', in Elizabeth Edwards and Christopher Morton (eds.), Photographs, Museums, Collections: Between Art and Information (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. 65–81.

Darren Newbury, 'Going and Coming Back: Curating the Post-Apartheid Archive', in Christopher Morton and Darren Newbury (eds.), The African Photographic Archive: Research and Curatorial Strategies (London: Bloombury, 2015), pp. 157–175.

Darren Newbury, People Apart: 1950s Cape Town Revisited – Photographs by Bryan Heseltine (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2013).

People Apart: Cape Town Survey 1952 – Photographs by Bryan Heseltine (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 2011).

Ciraj Rassool and Leslie Witz, 'The 1952 Jan Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival: Constructing and Contesting Public National History in South Africa', Journal of African History, 34 (1993), pp. 447–468.

Van Riebeeck-feesskou: Amptelike Gids en Katalogus, 14 Maart–5 April [Van Riebeeck Festival: Official Guidebook and Catalogue, 14 March–5 April] (Cape Town: Sentrale Komitee vir die Van Riebeeck-fees, 1952).

Leslie Witz, Apartheid's Festival: Contesting South Africa's National Pasts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003).

Leslie Witz, 'From Langa Market Hall and Rhodes' Estate to the Grand Parade and the Grand Parade and the Foreshore: Contesting Van Riebeeck's Cape Town', Kronos, 25 (1998), pp. 187–206.

Leslie Witz, Museum Times: Changing Histories in South Africa (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2002).

The Metcalf family collection of photographs: A story of Western expatriate life in Japan (1906-1931)

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:03:00 +0000

Group portrait of members of the Negishi Sailing Club, 'enjoying tea after a race', with a view of Negishi Bay in the background.

Photograph by Harriet E. Metcalf. Yokohama (Negishi district), Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Summer 1928.

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Lucy Brewer discusses her work cataloguing the Pitt Rivers Museum's Metcalf collection of photograph albums from Japan in the early twentieth century. The collection includes photographs and postcards taken or collected during two periods of residence in Japan, by (1.) Henry Ernest Metcalf and family (1906–1914); and (2.) by Bernard Leslie Metcalf and family (1926–1931). Here Lucy traces the multigenerational story of the Metcalf family's lives and travels in Japan, connecting their experiences to the context of Western expatriate migration to Yokohama and Kobe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:

On 25 May 1906, British marine engineer Henry Ernest Metcalf (1868–1954) boarded the RMS Mooltan with his wife and three young sons, leaving behind London to embark on a new life in Japan. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, Metcalf had spent his youth travelling the globe as an engineer on Peninsular and Oriental (P. & O.) and Babcock & Wilcox (B. & W.) steamships. As a matter of chance, he had been asked by the B. & W. Company to oversee a new branch of the business in Yokohama, and he accepted the position. Shortly thereafter, Henry Metcalf's young family set off on the long and eventful voyage via Aden, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, before finally arriving on the Japanese coast. The family eventually left Japan in 1914, but their interest in the country would persist for many years to come. A decade later, Henry Metcalf's second eldest son, Bernard Leslie Metcalf, followed in his father's footsteps when he returned to Japan with his wife, Harriet, as an employee of the Metropolitan-Vickers Company.

Commercial postcard ('real photo postcard') depicting a scene from the enthronement ceremony of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) in November 1928.

Photographer unknown. Tokyo, Japan. 1928.

Henry Metcalf's and Leslie Metcalf's experiences of living and working in Japan are documented in a photographic collection that was donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2016 by Christopher Peter Metcalf (son of Leslie). The collection [accession number: 2016.85] includes family photograph albums, professional prints and souvenir postcards that were taken or collected during these two periods of residence in Japan: by (1.) Henry Ernest Metcalf, his wife Edith Mary and their family (covering the period from 1906 to 1914); and (2.) by Bernard Leslie Metcalf, his wife Harriet Eugenia and their family (covering the period 1926 to 1931). Many of the photographs in the Metcalf collection testify to important historical events of the Taishō and Shōwa eras, including the enthronement ceremonies of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) in 1926 and the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923. This blog article primarily explores the family photograph albums, which offer intimate insight into the lives of Western expatriates living in Japan prior to the Second World War.

Henry Ernest Metcalf, Edith Mary Metcalf and family in Japan, 1906–1914

The earliest set of albums in the Metcalf family collection record Henry Ernest Metcalf's and Edith Mary Metcalf's domestic and social life in Japan. These two concertina-style photograph albums [2016.85.1, 2016.85.2] are largely devoid of annotations, meaning that the photographs' dates, depicted subjects (and names of photographer) are unspecified. During my five-week internship I used Henry Metcalf's later autobiography, titled On Britain's Business (1943), as an informational guide for identifying subjects and locating the images within a timeline of the family's life in Japan. In some cases, photographs from the family albums have been extracted and reproduced as illustrations in the published book. For example, a family portrait of Edith and her three young sons (Maurice, Kenneth and Leslie) with an unidentified man appears facing page 32 of On Britain's Business, with the caption 'OFF TO JAPAN – 1906'. Henry Metcalf, describing their journey on board the Mooltan, remarks: 'I was traveling this time not as one of the ship's engineers but as a "full-blown" family man with a male Chinese nurse to take turns with the baby!'

View of the family home of Henry and Edith Metcalf in Yokohama, located in the foreign settlement of Yamate area, which was known by locals as 'the Bluff'.

Photograph by Karl Lewis. Yokohama (Yamate district), Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Undated, circa 1910 (1906–1914).

In his account On Britain's Business, Henry Metcalf describes in detail his family's travels within Japan and their encounters with Japanese culture. Upon their arrival in the country in the summer of 1906, the Metcalfs spent eight weeks in the seaside town of Zushi before settling in Yokohama. The trip was such a success that they decided to purchase a summer house in Zushi, where they returned every year that they were living in Japan. In his autobiography, Metcalf recounts memories from a summer festival at a Zushi temple, observing his sons' fascination with the local wrestling competitions: 'When the wrestlers arrived for their annual bouts in the natural arena under the trees, there were, perhaps, no more interested spectators than these same small boys!' Numerous photographs depicting the Zushi seaside and the summer festival appear throughout the family albums, reflecting the Metcalf's affection for the region.

View of boats moored in the harbour in the summer beach resort of Zushi.

Photograph by Henry Metcalf or Edith Metcalf. Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Undated, circa 1910 (1906–1914).

Like many other Western expatriates who moved to Yokohama in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Metcalfs socialised mainly with other European residents. Despite Henry Metcalf's fascination and fondness for the Japanese people, he writes in his autobiography that '[f]oreigners in Japan had little social contact with the educated Japanese.' Instead, Metcalf's closest contacts in Yokohama were Frank Britton, a Cambridge-born Englishman who worked at the Zemma Engineering Works, and B. A. Munster, an elderly German expatriate who was Metcalf's predecessor as agent/representative for Babcock & Wilcox. Both Britton and Munster feature prominently in On Britain's Business and also in the Metcalf family albums. Various photographs show Metcalf posing with Britton and others during regular hiking expeditions through the Japanese countryside.

View of horses laden with baggage, with Henry Metcalf on a hiking trip at right of frame, and Mount Fuji just visible in the distance.

Photographer unknown. Japan. Undated, circa 1910 (1906–1914).

In his autobiography, Henry Metcalf states: 'What added greatly to the enjoyment of living in Japan during those years was the interesting foreign community in Yokohama.' The port city of Yokohama had been the designated hub of Western life in Japan since the country reopened to foreign residents in the mid-nineteenth century, following the end of a two-hundred-year period of self-imposed isolation ('Sakoku'). In the late 1850s, Yokohama was the only city in Japan where foreign residents were permitted to settle. By the Metcalfs' time living there, it had grown from a relatively small port to a thriving international centre of trade.

The Henry Metcalf photograph albums highlight another significant character in the Yokohama foreign community: Karl Lewis, an American photographer known for opening the 'last Western commercial studio of the Meiji period in Yokohama'. The Metcalfs collected a number of Karl Lewis' commercial prints showing buildings damaged in the Yokohama earthquake of 13 March 1909 (see below). One of these pictures [2016.85.2.38] shows the interior of Lewis' own darkroom, which was reduced to rubble in the earthquake's aftermath.

'Bed-room in Mr. Eddison's house' (caption). View of damage to the family home of Edwin and Hilda Eddison caused by an earthquake of 13 March 1909.

Photograph by Karl Lewis. Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. March 1909.

Originally from Bell County, Kentucky, Karl Lewis moved to Yokohama in 1901. He operated a photography studio there from 1902 to 1917, specialising in picture postcards which carried the tag line 'The only Western Photographer in Japan'. Shortly after the beginning of the Second World War, Lewis was arrested as a suspected American spy. He was placed under house arrest in Yokohama in 1942, where he remained until his death a few months later.

In 1914, Henry Metcalf and his family said goodbye to their lives in Japan and returned to England (via Russia). Metcalf himself would continue to conduct business in Japan, China and Russia in the coming years, as he describes in detail in his autobiography On Britain's Business. Furthermore, Henry Metcalf's legacy in marine engineering would soon be carried on by his son, (Bernard) Leslie Metcalf, who moved back to Japan less than a decade later.

Bernard Leslie Metcalf, Harriet Eugenia Metcalf and family in Japan, 1926–1931

Bernard Leslie Metcalf (1901–1988) and his wife Harriet Eugenia Metcalf (née Curtiss) were newly-weds when they began their own voyage to Japan in 1926. Harriet, an American, originally met Leslie while living in London with her relatives. The young couple had only just become engaged when Leslie was offered a position at the Metropolitan-Vickers Company in Kobe. The two were married shortly thereafter, and in February 1926 they set off for Japan from Paris.

Two facing pages from a family album recording the couple's honeymoon taken during their outward journey to begin a new life in Japan.

Photographs by (Bernard) Leslie Metcalf and Harriet Metcalf. Malaysia (Penang) and Singapore. February 1926.

The sea-voyage doubled as the couple's honeymoon, stopping at Cairo, Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong. Leslie's and Harriet's early weeks of marriage are vividly recorded in a series of photographs and handwritten captions in one of the albums [2016.85.8]. One snapshot, at bottom left of the two album pages above, shows Harriet being carried in a sedan chair, '[o]n the way to the Crag Hotel' in Penang, Malaysia. Another caption in the album enthusiastically announces the couple's newly-wed status: 'Mr[.] & Mrs. B. L. Metcalf!!'

Upon arriving in Japan, the young couple first settled in Kitano-chō, Kobe, and later moved to the Negishi neighbourhood of Yokohama. In both cities they were immersed in robust social networks from Great Britain, America and continental Europe. Leslie Metcalf was a member of various men's athletic clubs, including the Kobe Regatta and Athletic Club (K.R.A.C.) and the Negishi Sailing Club. Photographs from Leslie's sporting events, such as the K.R.A.C. Regatta of May 1927, testify to the presence of elite Western expatriates in Kobe during the 1920s – and to the importance of sport in these circles.

Album page featuring photographs of Kobe Regatta and Athletic Club's regatta (rowing competition) of May 1927. Leslie Metcalf is the tallest of the rowers, a men's four, pictured in the group portrait.

Photographs by Harriet Metcalf. Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. May 1927.

During their first few years of marriage without children, Harriet and Leslie travelled extensively in Japan. They followed the typical Japanese 'tourist trail' of the time, visiting dozens of temples in Nara, Kamakura, Kyoto, Kobe and Tokyo. They often hiked in the Rokkō mountains, and spent summer days picnicking at Awaji Island with friends. The couple frequented many of the same locations that Henry and Edith Metcalf had visited in years prior, such as the famous Fujiya Hotel in Miyanoshita, Hakone.

View of the Fujiya Hotel, celebrated building and a popular destination for visitors to the Hakone region.

Photographer unknown. Hakone (Miyanoshita), Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Undated, circa 1926–1931.

During their travels in Japan, Harriet and Leslie Metcalf purchased many souvenir postcards from the temples and scenic locations which they visited. With the help of dedicated Pitt Rivers Museum volunteer and Japanese translator Fusa McLynn, we translated the majority of the postcards' Japanese captions into English.

'Enthronement celebration of chrysanthemum flowers' (printed caption). Commercial postcard showing scenes featuring mannequins in assorted costumes staged to commemorate the enthronement of Emperor Showa.

Photographer(s) unknown Tokyo, Japan. 1928.

As well as recording their travels, Harriet's and Leslie's photographs also give a picture of the couple's domestic life. One of the albums, for example, features an extensive series of photographs depicting the interior of their home in Kitano-chō, Kobe. Before the Second World War, the neighbourhood of Kitano-chō was populated by wealthy expatriates from Europe and America, and became famous for its distinctively Western-style mansions. While Leslie's and Harriet's house featured a few Japanese objets, their décor generally emulated American and British homemaking styles. One image of the couple's bedroom [2016.85.8.71] shows European antique furniture and an '[e]tching of Westminster Abbey' on the wall.

Facing pages from a family album featuring handwritten notes recording the couple's domestic life in their house in the foreign settlement (Kitano-chō) of Kobe.

Photographs by (Bernard) Leslie Metcalf and Harriet Metcalf. Kobe (Kitano-chō district), Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. June 1926.

In her handwritten notes about the house, Harriet proudly describes their furnishings and modern appliances: 'On the left is the archway into the den. You should see a bit of my desk. Note the lamp shade. Don't the things look nice on the sideboard? On the right is the jolly pantry which looks so clean and white. The bottle is just out of the icebox (which is in there too). It is just like an American refrigerator.' Harriet's descriptions seem to suggest that these albums [2016.85.7, 2016.85.8] may have been compiled to share with distant family members in England or America, who would have been eager to hear how the newly-weds were adjusting to life abroad.

Peter Metcalf, who donated his family's photograph albums to the Pitt Rivers Museum, pictured at his home in Oxford, where souvenirs of his parents' and grandparents' time in Japan adorn the shelves.

Photographs by Lucy Brewer. Oxford, England. August 2023.

At the end of my internship, I had the privilege of meeting (Christopher) Peter Metcalf, the son of Bernard Leslie Metcalf and grandson of Henry (Harry) Ernest Metcalf. Peter shared with me the story of his parents' move to Japan, and kindly gave me a tour of the family's collection of Japanese artworks, which still decorate his Oxford home. These objects from the Metcalf's time spent living abroad bring another perspective to the photographs and postcards now held in the Pitt Rivers Museum. A unique record of Japanese and British cultural history, the Metcalf family collection offers a rare glimpse into early twentieth-century Japan as seen through the eyes of its foreign residents.

Lucy Brewer

University of Oxford postgraduate (History of Art and Visual Culture, reading for M.St.)

14 November 2023

Bibliography

Terry Bennett, Photography in Japan, 1853–1912 (Tokyo: Tuttle, 2006).

Dorothy Britton, 'Frank Guyver Britton (1879–1934), Engineer and Earthquake Hero', in H. Cortazzi (ed.), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. 6 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2007), pp. 174–181.

H. Cotton (ed.), Electrical Equipment in Mines (London: George Newnes, 1955).

Harvard Library (CURIOSity Collections), 'Early Photography of Japan: Chronology', <https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/early-photography-of-japan/feature/chronology-e0701b50-0537-456a-9acd-f7ea284f20ac> (accessed 14 November 2023).

H. E. Metcalf, Beware Japan's Leaders (Eastbourne: Baskerville Press, 1945).

H. E. Metcalf, On Britain's Business (London: Rich & Cowan, undated [1943]).

Darren L. Swanson, 'Gentlemanly Capitalism and the Club: Expatriate Social Networks in Meiji Kobe', in J. E. Hoare (ed.), Culture, Power and Politics in Treaty-Port Japan, 1854–1899: Key Papers, Press and Contemporary Writings (Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2018), pp. 185–211.

Visual Tokyo (Harvard University), 'Kobe Regatta and Athletic Club (KRAC)', <https://visualtokyo.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/exhibits/show/the-history-of-rowing-in-japan/kobe-regatta---athletic-club--> (accessed 14 November 2023).

Safeguarding our celluloid past: Care and identification of nitrate photographic film collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 15:32:00 +0000

In this blog article, curatorial assistant Oliver Anthony describes his work on a project to identify, digitise and conserve the Pitt Rivers Museum's assorted collection of nitrate film negatives. A volatile early photographic film type prone to eventual degradation or deterioration, cellulose nitrate film can frequently cause problems for museums and archives, and this important work has been critical in preserving the material for future generations. In explaining the range of techniques and processes employed from start to finish, Ollie's work on the project can also provide a valuable guide for other institutions and professionals:

Introducing nitrate film

Cellulose nitrate film, also known as 'nitrate film' or simply 'celluloid', was one of the earliest types of film available to filmmakers and photographers in the late nineteenth century. Already used in the manufacture of toys, jewellery, snooker balls and explosives, the compound soon gained popularity in the field of photography as a plastic support upon which light-sensitive silver nitrate salts could be bound. Not until the gradual introduction of safety film stocks in the late 1940s was nitrate film eventually displaced; though, due to the excessive cost and fragility of safety film, it is not uncommon to find overstock of nitrate film used into the early 1960s.

Offering deep blacks, bright whites and rich tonal properties, nitrate film became universally popular during the early decades of the twentieth century for its silvery metallic luminosity. For anthropologists – particularly those in the post-Malinowski era growing accustomed to the establishing field of ethnography and participant observation – the format of negative film was lighter, less cumbersome, and more forgiving than the alternative glass plate technology available at the time. Manufacturers, equally aware of these advantages, advertised the newly developed film to this end, with Kodak, for example, introducing spools of film intended 'for the use of Travelers, Explorers, etc.'

Figure 1. Beatrice Blackwood's Rolleicord camera, bought from 'Mr. Mallard' of Harrington's photographic store in Sydney, Australia, in June 1936.

The introduction of smaller and more portable film cameras, such as the Kodak Brownie and later the medium format Rolleicord, opened the field of photography to non-specialists, a cornerstone that has since developed into 'amateur' photography. In ethnography, carrying a handheld camera encouraged anthropologists to notice details that might otherwise be ignored; thus, nitrate film has a lot to answer for in the formative years of the discipline. In much the same way that earlier innovations including stereoscopic photography shaped the way that fieldwork was conducted, so too did the 'celluloid era' alter the anthropologist's working practices, habits and interactions with local informants.

Figures 2 and 3. Envelopes used for storing nitrate negatives and accompanying prints, from the collection of Frederick Spencer Chapman, member of the British Arctic Air-Route Expedition (1930–31) and later part of the British Mission to Lhasa in Tibet (1936–37). Eastman Kodak was the first company to introduce cellulose nitrate film negatives in 1889, soon after advertising the new format to 'travelers' and 'explorers'.

However, while benefitting from numerous advantages in both its strength and portability, the material also posed some significant safety concerns. Known to be both toxic and highly flammable, nitrate film produces oxygen as a by-product during burning; thus, once alight, it is near impossible to extinguish until fully burned out. In some instances, it has even been noted to burn when fully submerged underwater.

Several major theatre fires in the early twentieth century were brought about by the rapid flammability of nitrate film reels and their proximity to either lamps or projectionists' equipment. Equally devastating was the loss in 1916 by Robert Flaherty of 30,000 feet (over 9,000 metres) of original negative relating to the Itivimuit tribe of Hudson Bay, Canada, caused when a stray cigarette butt dropped onto scraps of nitrate film leading to an explosive cascade. Narrowly escaping with his life, yet prompted by this loss, Flaherty returned to Canada to record what has since been recognised as the first feature-length documentary, Nanook of the North (1922).

Figure 4. An original Kodak nitrate film tube used by the first curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Henry Balfour, during a trip to southern and eastern Africa in 1931. As part of the ongoing work to conserve the Museum's cellulose nitrate film collections, previously unseen photographs taken by Balfour have been digitised and made available online.

In museums and archives where large collections of degrading nitrate film stock have amassed, the risk posed by nitrate-fuelled fires has prompted a move to rehouse early film collections in spaces away from the public and other museum objects. Unlike its earlier counterpart (glass plates), nitrate film is highly susceptible to rapid decay and autocatalytic degradation, and also risks inflicting acidic damage to surrounding objects. Thus, to ensure the longevity of nitrate film, and to mitigate these risks, it has become best practice to store collections in freezers or temperature-controlled vaults.

Nitrate film at the Pitt Rivers Museum

The Pitt Rivers Museum holds over 100,000 film negatives, with around 17,500 of these believed to contain cellulose nitrate. Ranging from individual large format negatives to strips of 35 mm film, the holdings are reflective of the diverse range of film options available to anthropologists in the early twentieth century. A portion of the Museum's photograph collections are also catalogued simply as 'film negative', with no record of their underlying composite; thus, to know fully the extent of the nitrate film collections in the Museum, a number of identification methods have been established, as will be further described below.

As curatorial assistant of photograph collections, I am currently working on an ongoing project to assess, preserve and digitise the Museum's holdings of nitrate film. With newly scanned photographs being made available to view online, the research value of the Museum's collections is enriched all the while remaining safe and conserved in dedicated cold-temperature environments for future work. This blog article provides an overview of the work undertaken to freeze the Museum's nitrate film collections, beginning with a guide to identifying the film, and offers a glance at some of the fascinating collections that have come to light as part of the project's digitisation process.

Guide to identifying nitrate film

The first major step to assessing any nitrate film collection is to identify which photographs in a collection contain cellulose nitrate. While this data might already exist, as was the case for a substantial proportion of film negatives on the Pitt Rivers Museum's database, first hand identification methods are also often required. The following criteria were used as a base method for identifying nitrate film in the Museum's collections:

Age of material: – Firstly, consider the age of the collection. Cellulose nitrate film was primarily used for photographic purposes from about 1890 to the 1950s. If it is possible to determine that the film was produced during this period (where the film is not dated, try estimating by subject matter), then it is highly likely to contain cellulose nitrate. Any film negatives produced later than 1950 (but earlier than around 1960) should be further investigated since the photographer may have been using out of date, reserve film stock, or re-spooled 35 mm motion film. It is not uncommon to find nitrate film in collections produced more than ten years after the introduction of 'safety' film.

Consider the examples below from the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections, digitised as part of this project. Figure 5, produced between around 1910 and 1920, is easily dated to the early twentieth century thanks to accurate catalogue records, and is therefore a cellulose nitrate composite. Figure 6, a later negative produced by social anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard during the 1930s, is also a clear example of nitrate film. For figure 7, however, assessing the negative solely by age proved difficult, since it was produced in 1952, after the introduction of 'safety' film, yet could feasibly pass as an example of old-stock nitrate film. Identification using a chemical test subsequently proved that it was in fact 'safety' film (or cellulose acetate composite).

Figure 5. An early example of a nitrate film negative showing a member of Queensland Museum staff displaying two pieces of bark cloth in front of glass display cases containing tools. Photograph by James Edge-Partington. Brisbane, Australia. 1897.

Figure 6. A nitrate film negative produced in the 1930s by E. E. Evans-Pritchard during his visit to Egypt, showing the Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. Despite being produced twenty years after the example shown immediately above, this negative still falls within the 'celluloid' period of photography.

Figure 7. A 'safety' film negative produced in the early 1950s by professional photographer Bryan Heseltine, showing dancers performing in one of the York Mystery Plays.

Labelling / Notch codes: – Most manufacturers used identifying marks, or notch codes, along the borders of film negatives to help distinguish the composite material. For instance, Kodak, as seen in figure 8 below, used a V-notch code to set apart nitrate film from later safety film. The absence of a notch code in both figures 9 and 10 suggest they are nitrate film negatives, although further consideration of the age (via the frame's subject matter) or physical characteristics helped to support this theory. Figure 11, clearly inscribed along the edge with 'Eastman Nitrate Kodak', is also a good example of how early film manufacturers used text-based labelling to aid photographers in distinguishing early film types.

Figure 8. Kodak notch codes used to distinguish nitrate film from safety film. The uppermost frame with four V-shaped notches is typical of large format Kodak nitrate film stock, whereas the lower frame with rectangular notch is indicative of safety film.

Figure 9. A nitrate film negative without any notch code. The photograph, produced by Henry Balfour, shows a Zeederberg stage coach used during his trip to the Transvaal Colony, southern Africa, in 1905.

Figure 10. A second nitrate film negative with no notch code. The photograph, produced by mining engineer John Lucien Vitoria, shows a pumping station on a mine site in northern Nigeria, circa 1930–32.

Figure 11. A 'Kodak Eastman Nitrate' (see right-hand edge, image reversed to demonstrate text), a good example of how manufacturers labelled film to aid photographers in identifying film types. The photograph shows line drawings of vessels, presumably collected during Robert Hottot's expedition to Central Africa in 1908–9.

Physical characteristics: – Typically, nitrate film is thin, flexible and with age becomes brittle, and is therefore distinguishable from later acetate or polyester-based films which are often rigid. Rolls of nitrate film also tend to curl since they were only coated on one side. Nitrate film has a distinctive, pungent and slightly sweet odour, which can be detected even in tiny amounts. In contrast, acetate or 'safety' film emits a harsh and vinegary odour (part of a slow deterioration process that has become known as 'vinegar syndrome').

Deterioration: – Nitrate film is prone to deterioration at room temperature which begins when the film breaks down and releases acidic by-products, including nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide. Other noticeable signs of deterioration, shown in the figures below, include tanning or yellowing, curling or warping, staining or bleaching, and a stickiness to the touch. Nitrate film can also become powdery after substantial degradation. While rubber gloves should always be worn to handle nitrate film, the need to avoid direct contact with the film and its by-products becomes even more vital when the film has reached the point of deterioration.

Figure 12. Nitrate film negative in the early stages of deterioration with clear signs of discolouration.

Figure 13. Embrittlement of a nitrate film negative caused by heat damage.

Figure 14. Later stages of nitrate film decay. Note the yellow colouring and flakey texture. The acidic by-product released by the negative during autocatalytic degradation caused deterioration of a glass plate stored alongside it.

Figure 15. Orange-coloured powdered remains of a nitrate film negative following decomposition.

Chemical test for nitrate film

Working with the Pitt Rivers Museum's Conservation team, we were able to establish an in-house test for cellulose nitrate using diphenylamine solution mixed with sulphuric acid. Over several weeks, we sampled various film negative collections, especially those which were left unidentified using the above methods, with subsequent results impacting more than four thousand individual negatives.

A mix of positive and negative test results (as seen in figure 16 below) demonstrated the effectiveness of the chemical test for nitrate film, and proved an effective way to prioritise collections for freezing, as well as in identifying those most at risk of deterioration. While the identification test is inherently destructive – meaning that small cuttings of film were taken – it was possible to mitigate the impact of this on a collection by restricting test samples to the edge of film or to poor exposures.

Figure 16. Results from a test to identify the presence of nitrate using diphenylamine solution and sulphuric acid. Tests on the left show positive results and are determined by a dark blue reaction. Negative results on the right show little or no change to the reagent. Nitrate is occasionally used in binding acetate and polyester film, so a faint blue trace may occasionally occur.

Handling and digitising nitrate film

The next step in the process of rehousing the Pitt Rivers Museum's nitrate film collections was to begin the task of digitisation and packing for long-term storage. Given the hazardous nature of nitrate film, it is important to mitigate workspace risks, including the arrangement of digitisation and other equipment prior to handling. The following suggestions are borrowed from the National Park Service's handbook for working with cellulose nitrate film (see bibliography below):

• Set up a work area in a cool, well ventilated area; if this is not possible then you can use a large fan to create airflow, thus removing any potential build-up of gas.

• Use nitrile gloves when handing nitrate film; clean cotton gloves are acceptable, although these can be abrasive and scratch the emulsion.

• Work on a surface that is easily washable, so that acidic build-up can be prevented.

• Avoid touching your eyes, hair or skin with a contaminated gloved hand.

• Keep scanning equipment free of dust and well maintained.

For digitisation purposes, an Epson Perfection V850 Pro flatbed scanner was used, as opposed to photographing using a DSLR (or digital camera). Each method has its advantages, though given the scope and workspace required for this project, the automatic scanning and cropping capabilities of Epson's software proved advantageous to our needs. Except for two notable collections, nitrate film requiring digitisation was either in medium format or 35 mm film strips, so it was possible to develop a smooth workflow using a uniform scanning process with Epson's dedicated film holders (figures 17 and 18 below).

Figures 17 and 18. Nitrate film negatives in Epson film holders ready for digitisation. It is important to wear gloves when handling nitrate film to prevent fingerprints from marking the plastic and to avoid contact with acids released by the film.

Scans were made at a resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch) to a size of 420 x 297 mm (or A3 equivalent), and saved as uncompressed TIFF files. In this sense the scanned image files became the 'digital negative' of the original photographic works. On average, digitising using a flatbed scanner might produce around two hundred images a day, depending on the format of the negatives and the level of post-processing required, including image cropping, optimisation and numbering.

After scanning, image files were uploaded to the Museum's Digital Asset Management System (DAMS), where image metadata was also recorded. The images were then integrated into the Pitt Rivers Museum's Collections Management System (CMS), from where the newly digitised images shortly thereafter became available to view on the Museum's Collections Online platform.

Figure 19. Nitrate film negatives from Charles R. Stonor's India collection during scanning using Epson scanner software. The negatives are medium format and were scanned three at a time using a film holder and an Epson Perfection V850 Pro.

Figure 20. A digitised nitrate film negative following optimisation, including cropping and contrast balance. The scanned image shows a photograph of Kohazu of Sakhalu and his sons in Sakhalu, Assam, India, produced by Charles R. Stonor in 1946.

Storing nitrate film

Following digitisation, steps were taken to prepare the Museum's nitrate film collection for long-term storage in on-site chest freezers. The deterioration of nitrate film, though ultimately an inevitable process, is accelerated by damp, heat and fluctuating temperatures. Furthermore, the fumes released through the decay of nitrate film can lead to autocatalytic degradation, a process which also deteriorates surrounding objects at an exponential rate. For this reason, nitrate film, where possible, should be stored separately from other objects, preferably in its own boxes and storage unit. Nitrate negatives should also be kept in acid-free separation sheets or envelopes (rather than plastic sleeves), separating them from each other, and labelled with accession number or location code for easy future identification (see figure 21 below).

Figure 21. Transfer of a nitrate film negative from old plastic sleeving to new alkaline-based paper envelope. The negative was produced by Beatrice Blackwood during one of her trips to North America in the 1920s.

Prior to freezing, nitrate negatives should be placed in archival boxes, as shown in figure 22 below. The boxes should of be no more than 35 mm thickness to ensure that they freeze/defrost through to the centre of the package, and with two sheets of oven-baked, acid-free mount board placed on top and below, alongside a critical moisture indicator (CMI) and label. Each box should then be vacuum sealed in two Ziploc or frost-free freezer bags, before placement in a well organised freezer allowing for easy future retrieval.

Figure 22. Archival box containing nitrate negatives prior to storage in freezer. Packing includes oven-baked mount board, vacuum-sealed plastic bags, a humidity indicator, and clear label indicating the contents of the box.

To ensure the long-term preservation of nitrate film, collections should be kept cool, at a constant temperature of no more than 10 degrees Celsius (preferably less than 4.4 ºC, and with a relative humidity of 20 to 30%). To achieve these stable conditions, it is necessary to use cold-temperature environments such as a chest freezer or cold-room storage.

Concluding remarks

Over thirteen thousand digital scans have so far been made available online as part of the ongoing project to freeze the Pitt Rivers Museum's nitrate film collections. Even after a hundred years of storage, the striking ability for nitrate film to retain its luminosity has come to the fore throughout the digitisation project, where insights into the work of early British anthropologists, including Beatrice Blackwood, Henry Balfour and E. E. Evans-Pritchard, have come to light. Certainly, while nitrate film poses a range of unique challenges for museum professionals and often involves complex identification processes, its longevity can be sustained by effective digitisation and preservation techniques, as has been demonstrated throughout this blog article.

Oliver Anthony

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

14 September 2023

References

Erik Barnouw, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Nanook of the North, dir. Robert J. Flaherty (Pathé Exchange, 1922).

National Parks Service (Washington, D.C., United States of America), 'Caring for Nitrate Film', Conserve O Gram, 14/8 (August 1998), pp. 1–4, <https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/14-08.pdf> (accessed 14 September 2023).

Icons of the past: An album of postcards from 1920s Brittany

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 10:40:00 +0000

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Annabelle Hondier examines a unique album of commercial postcards of Brittany collected and compiled in the mid-1920s during a tour of the region by William Chauncy Cartwright. Analysing the material for what it says about Breton identity and culture, as well as its representation in a visual medium, Annabelle writes:

In 1924, William Chauncy Cartwright (1853–1933) set out on a cycling tour of Brittany, north-west France, at the age of seventy-one. An elite member of the British upper class, and retired Chief Clerk of the Foreign Office, Cartwright's solo trip seems to have offered a welcome respite from his busy professional and social life. On his journey, however, he collected over six hundred postcards and recorded his travels with a dedication rivalling that of an academic researcher. Today, the album held in the Pitt Rivers Museum containing his written account of his trip and these postcards serves as a remarkable record of postcard production in Brittany at the start of the twentieth century. This album [2010.75.37] is just one of a number in the Museum's collection compiled by Cartwright, with other destinations which he visited ranging from Norwich to Tunis.

Roughly half of the postcards in the album were produced by photography studios based in Paris, and the remainder originate from Brittany. The exact dates for the images themselves are unknown, but analysis of the designs of the backs of the postcards reveals that their dates of production vary quite significantly. Some of the earliest are estimated as circa 1915 and 1916, while others were produced around 1923 to 1924, closer to the time of Cartwright's trip. Cartwright's collecting therefore gives us insight into almost a decade of postcard production. The postcards vary significantly in character: one bears a bawdy joke, while others depict religious ceremonies of great gravity.

Unsurprisingly, many of the postcards emphasise, above all, the traditions particular to the region of Brittany. In several images, women and girls wear embroidered lace hats called coiffes (see below), which were (and still are) perhaps the most well known and easily recognisable indicator of Breton identity.

'Presqu'ile de Crozon. – Coiffe de Cérémonie' (printed caption).

Girl in profile wearing traditional Breton lace coiffe: 'Crozon Peninsula. – Ceremonial coiffe' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown. Crozon peninsula, Finistère, Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

Catholic rituals are also frequently depicted, and many pilgrimages and processions are represented on the postcards, such as one [2010.75.37.558, below] that depicts a Pardon, a kind of pilgrimage particular to Brittany, in which young women carry banners in honour of the Virgin Mary. Another image [2010.75.37.139] shows two young women attending the Oratory of Saint Guirec. The caption tells us that the girls are trying to find out if they will be married within the year, by placing a pin in the nose of the saint. If it stays in, there is a good chance they will find a husband soon.

'Pardon de Sainte-Anne-la-Palue – La Procession du Soir dite des Miracles[.] Les Jeunes Filles portant les Bannières et la Statue de la Vierge' (printed caption).

Procession of Breton women in traditional costume: 'Pardon of Sainte-Anne-la-Palue – The evening procession of the miracles. The young girls carrying the banners and statue of the Virgin' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown. Sainte-Anne-la-Palud, Finistère, Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

'L'Oratoire de "Monsieur Saint-Guirec" à Ploumanac'h[.] Pour connaître si elles se marieront dans l'année, les jeunes filles piquent une épingle dans le nez du saint; si l'épingle tient bon, il y a des chances' (printed caption).

Two women at an oratory in honour of the Welsh monk Saint Guirec on a Breton beach: 'The oratory of Mr Saint Guirec at Ploumanac'h. To find out if they will get married within the year, the girls stick a pin in the saint's nose; if the pin holds, there is a chance' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown (Collection Émile Hamonic). Ploumanac'h, Côtes-d'Armor, Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

Other, secular Breton icons are also exhibited. The Breton lit-clos, a medieval type of enclosed bed, is featured on several postcards. In one image, below [2010.75.37.173], a bunk bed iteration can be seen; in the other image [2010.75.37.561], titled 'Autour des Lits Clots' [Around the box beds], a woman poses coyly in one of these beds, decorated with Breton clogs and ceramic, and religious statuettes. The bawdy caption tells us she scolds – or teases – a male onlooker or lover: 'Mr Jean, go away so that I can get dressed!'

'Coutumes[,] Mœurs et Costumes Bretons. Un lit a double étage' (printed caption).

Two women demonstrating a bunk bed in a traditional Breton style: 'Breton customs, manners and costumes. A double-storey bed' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown. Brittany, France. (Postcard published by Neurdein Frères, Paris.) Undated, circa 1917–1921.

'Autour des Lits Clots[.] – "Monsieur Jean, allez-vous ce que j'puisse m'habiller!"' (printed caption).

'Around the box beds. "Mr Jean, go away so that I can get dressed!"' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown (Collection Émile Hamonic). Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

A charming scene inside a pancake shop (crêperie) [2010.75.37.562, below] also shows one of the most famous Breton foods, the crêpe, being eaten by men and women, adults and children, all tightly packed around the fire, again in traditional dress.

'Intérieur d'une Crêperie en Bretagne' (printed caption).

Group of people in Breton dress preparing and eating traditional pancakes: 'Interior of a crêperie (pancake shop) in Brittany' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown. Brittany, France. (Postcard published by Villard, Quimper.) Undated, circa 1920.

These examples present rustic scenes, but one postcard [2010.75.37.570, below], however, provides insight into growing modernisation, and the effects of industrialisation in the region. Four Breton women stand outside in their clogs knitting, while they wait for the factory they work at to open. Although we never get a glimpse of such a factory in any of the images in the album, this suggests that Brittany was far from immune to the developments of industrialisation in the early twentieth century. Further evidence that Brittany was, in fact, not completely out of touch with the times are the shop signs for Michelin and Peugeot [2010.75.37.487, 2010.75.37.41], as well as a distant 'Auto-Garage' [2010.75.37.322], visible in some of the images.

'Morgat–Camaret. – En attendant l'ouverture des Usines' (printed caption).

Four women knitting outdoors by the sea, in traditional dress and wooden clogs: 'Morgat–Camaret. Waiting for the factories to open' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown. Beween Morgat and Camaret, Finistère, Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

'Pontivy. – Rue du Fil' (printed caption).

View of old street lined with a variety of shops.

Photographer unknown. Pontivy, Morbihan, Brittany, France. (Postcard published by Laurent-Nel, Rennes.) Undated, circa 1920.

'Pont-l'Abbé. – L'Etang' (printed caption).

Postcard depicting buildings on the edge of a lake, with a garage visible (see detail).

Photographer unknown. Pont-l'Abbé, Finistère, Brittany, France. (Postcard published by either Lévy Fils et Compagnie or Lévy et Neurdein Réunis, Paris.) Undated, circa 1920.

Something far more ancient than any Breton tradition – older, even, than Catholicism itself – are the megaliths that populate the region. Dolmens and menhirs, types of giant man-made stone structures, are numerous throughout Brittany. Who erected these structures, and why, is unknown, and many of the postcards in this album depict this regional curiosity. Often, local people are posed next to or inside these structures to demonstrate their scale, such as in the image below [2010.75.37.587].

'Carnac. – Le Géant de Kerderff' (printed caption). [The Giant of Kerderff.]

Photographer unknown. Carnac, Morbihan, Brittany, France. (Postcard published by Laurent-Nel, Rennes.) Undated, circa 1920.

Some of these photographs of megaliths were taken by a photographer with a speciality in this subject. Several images can be attributed to the archaeologist and megalith expert Zacharie Le Rouzic (1864–1939), who was from Carnac. He studied under a Scottish archaeologist named James Miln, and himself grew accomplished in the study of the megaliths of Brittany. The postcards produced by Le Rouzic [2010.75.37.578, 2010.75.37.581, below] are based upon his own photographs taken for archaeological purposes, so were not mass-produced to as great a degree as other postcards from larger, more commercial publishers.

'Carnac – Alignements de Kermario' (printed caption). [The Kermario standing stones.]

Woman in traditional Breton dress standing at a megalithic site, with two men standing on a rock in the background.

Photograph by Zacharie Le Rouzic. Carnac, Morbihan, Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

'Carnac – Plan cavalier des alignements du Ménec' (printed caption). [Outline plan of the Ménec alignments.]

Model, made from an unknown material, demonstrating an aerial view of the spacing of the stones in the Ménec alignment at Carnac.

Photograph by Zacharie Le Rouzic. Carnac, Morbihan, Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

Conclusion

The postcards of Brittany collected by Cartwright depict a region that still continues its time-honoured – but perhaps also, in the eyes of a Parisian viewer or photographer of the 1920s, démodé – traditions. The postcards appear to exaggerate the unique traditions of the area for the tourist market, and sometimes even mock and denigrate the residents, particularly the elderly. The image of an old man below [2010.75.37.78] has a caption that tells the reader '[h]e once was the cockerel of his village'.

'Vieux Breton de Quimper – Il fut dans le temps jadis le coq de son village' (printed caption).

Elderly man in traditional Breton clothing seated holding a cane: 'An old Breton of Quimper. He was once the cockerel of his village' (translated caption).

Photographer unknown. Quimper, Finistère, Brittany, France. Undated, circa 1920.

The stereotype of a rustic, rough Brittany is in full force in many of these images, and the photographs of dolmen add an objective, archaeological flavour to this perception – as if, like these giant rocks anchored in the earth, Brittany remains rooted in ancient times. This blog article barely scratches the surface of the multitude of postcards in this album and the rich history that can be uncovered from them. The further reading offered below should provide additional insight into the study of Breton culture in photographs.

Annabelle Hondier

University of Oxford postgraduate (History of Art and Visual Studies, reading for M.St.)

22 July 2022

Bibliography

Gérard Bailloud and Gwenaëlle Wilhelm-Bailloud, Zacharie Le Rouzic: Archéologue et photographe à Carnac (Vannes: Éditions Blanc et Noir, 2014).

Maurice Bigot, Les coiffes bretonnes: 100 modèles différents (Saint-Brieuc: O. L. Aubert, 1928).

Jean-Marie Déguignet, Memoirs of a Breton Peasant, trans. Linda Asher (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004).

Musée de Préhistoire (Carnac Museum), 'A Bit of History', <https://www.museedecarnac.com/a-bit-of-history/?lang=en> (accessed 22 July 2022).

R. L., 'Zacharie Le Rouzic (1864–1939)' [obituary], Revue archéologique, Sixième série, 15 (1940), pp. 87–89.

Phil Watson, Dolmens, Menhirs and Other Megaliths of France on Old Postcards, 8 volumes (no place [self-published by the author], 2018–2022), volume 1: The Megaliths of Carnac on Old Postcards (2018).

Phil Watson, How to Date Old French Postcards (Cartes Postales Anciennes) (no place [self-published by the author], 2018).

On a portrait of King Taawhiao on display in the museum

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 10:53:00 +0000

Portrait of King Taawhiao in the Pitt Rivers Museum's photograph collections [1998.189.2.2]

Taawhiao (Tukaaroto Matutaaera) Pootatau Te Wherowhero

By Nanaia Mahuta and Paul Meredith

Taawhiao of Ngaati Mahuta was the second Maaori King who led his people during one of the most turbulent times of Maaori-Paakehaa history. He was the son of the renowned Waikato leader Pootatau Te Wherowhero and his senior wife, Whakaawi. He was born at Oorongokoekoeaa on the upper Mookau River among the Ngaati Maniapoto people where Pootatau Te Wherowhero and his Waikato people had taken refuge after being driven from their lands by Ngaapuhi and their muskets in 1822. Initially named Tukaaroto (to commemorate a battle that his father participated in) he was baptised Matutaaera (Methuselah) by the Anglican missionary Robert Burrows and was later bestowed the name Taawhia te Ao (Encircle the World) or Taawhiao meaning to hold the people together by the prophet Te Ua Haumene.

Taawhiao was close to six feet tall, and had an elaborate facial moko – unusual among the chiefs of his era. He had children by three wives, but a number of his other offspring were not acknowledged except within their mothers' hapuu. His principal wife was Hera, the daughter of one of his key advisers, Taamati Ngaapora. They had three children: Tiahuia (who married Te Tahuna Herangi and was the mother of Te Puea) Mahuta and Te Wherowhero. Taawhiao's other wives were Rangiaho with whom he had two children, Pokaia and Haunui and Aotea: their child was Puahaere.

Taawhiao was the eldest son of Pootatau Te Wherowhero (the first Maaori King) and upon the death of his father he was proclaimed King on the 5th July 1860. His reign lasted for 34 years and directly followed the period of war and conflict between the British settler government and tribes across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Despite this impact, Taawhiao held on to the peaceful tenants left by his father. Taawhiao was strongly committed to the Kiingitanga’s premise of Mana Maaori Motuhake and established an aukati or a line not to be crossed at the Mangataawhiri stream in the northern reaches of the Waikato. Taawhiao and his followers, deemed by the settler government to be in rebellion, and had over a million acres of their land confiscated. Waikato were rendered virtually landless and forced once again to retreat into the heartland of Te Nehenehenui and take refuge with their Ngaati Maniapoto relatives.

Taawhiao and Ngaati Maniapoto leaders established their own aukati or boundaries which were closed to Paakehaa. They effectively administered an independent Maaori state. With Taawhiao’s presence, outsiders came to refer to the area as the King’s Country and then the King Country, the official name of the region today.

The return of Waikato’s confiscated lands was central to Taawhiao’s subsequent negotiations with the government in the latter part of the 1860s and through the 1870s to re-establish peaceful relations. Taawhiao maintained that there could be no reconciliation until those lands were restored to his people.

Portrait of King Taawhiao on display in the Body Arts section of the Museum, 2023

Taawhiao sought support for his cause as leader of the Kiingitanga and became aware that his was not a unique struggle. He believed that in time others would come to the assistance of his cause, hence his saying, ‘Teeraa anoo ooku nei hoa kei ngaa toopito e whaa o te ao, ko ngā huumeka, ko ngaa parakimete me ngaa kaamura.’ 'My friends will come from the four ends of the world. They are the shoemakers, the blacksmiths and the carpenters.'

Denied the justice he sought from the New Zealand government, in 1884 Taawhiao led a deputation of several leading chiefs to England with a petition to Queen Victoria. When he was asked the reason for his journey he replied, 'I am going to see the Queen of England, to have the Treaty of Waitangi honoured'. The petition proposed a separate Maaori parliament, the appointment of a special commissioner as intermediary between Paakehaa and Maaori parliaments, and an independent commission of inquiry into land confiscations. Taawhiao was denied an audience with Queen Victoria and at a meeting with Lord Derby, the secretary of state for the colonies, he was advised that the petition had first to be referred to the New Zealand government. The New Zealand premier, Robert Stout, eventually responded to the Colonial Office by declining to discuss events preceding 1865, when the imperial government was responsible, and denying that there had been any infraction of the treaty since then. Taawhiao's specific proposals were dismissed or ignored.

Coverage of Taawhiao's visit to England from The Graphic, June 14, 1884

Upon his return to the Waikato, Taawhiao sought solutions to Maaori problems through the establishment of Maaori institutions to deal with them.

Taawhiao died at Paaraawera on 26 August 1894. His death was widely reported. He was buried at Taupiri alongside his father.

Taawhiao was regarded as a great visionary his sayings or tongikura have often been reflected on by his descendents to guide the aspirations of successive Kiingitanga leaders. Taawhiao’s sayings provided a philosophical and ideological vision of self-determination. One of which was ‘E kore teenei whakaoranga e huri ki tua o aku mokopuna, ka puta ka ora, This way of life will not continue beyond the days of my grandchildren when we shall reach salvation.’

Generations have discussed and debated them at tribal hui in their continued fight for the return of their confiscated lands, the perpetuation of tribal identity, the pursuit of self-determination and the maintenance of Kiingitanga. To this day the sayings of Taawhiao continue to influence tribal leadership.

Views of Cape Town: Cataloguing Bryan Heseltine's collection of commercial and studio photographs (1948-1952)

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 18:14:00 +0000

In this blog article, curatorial assistant Oliver Anthony discusses his work in cataloguing a recent donation of photographs by Bryan Heseltine, who photographed extensively in Cape Town during the mid-twentieth century. Complementing a previous donation of photographs by Heseltine, some of which were exhibited at the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2011, the latest donation of material includes further documentary work and also commercial, environmental and personal photography. Considering both the range and importance of the material, Ollie writes:

From May to September of this year, I digitised, researched and catalogued the most recent acquisition of photographs produced by the late Bryan Heseltine, including around 1,200 negatives (of various formats). Bryan is best known for his intimate portraiture depicting the people and culture of townships and settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, including in Windermere, District Six, Nyanga and Langa, and the Bo-Kaap. This work has previously been shown in an exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2011 and in a subsequent publication by Darren Newbury, People Apart: 1950s Cape Town Revisited – Photographs by Bryan Heseltine (2013).

Views of the Cleansing Branch of the City Engineer's Department of Cape Town.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Men using a horse-drawn carriage to dispose of landfill waste, part of Cape Town's Cleansing Branch.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

In contrast to Bryan's township photographs, the most recent acquisition includes photographs produced during his commercial ventures in Cape Town, and further afield, as far as Harrismith, Free Town, between the years 1948 and 1952, and then during his early years back in England until the late 1950s. The collection [2022.1] also includes a quantity of studio and environmental photographs, some featuring well-known figures in the artistic and theatrical community of Cape Town. Having established a photographic business, 'Greenshutters', in the late 1940s, it is likely that these negatives were produced during this time (Newbury, 2013). Within Bryan's family, the story goes that when he left South Africa for England in 1952 he disposed of most of his commercial photography over the side of the ship. This blog article is therefore intended to provide a brief insight into the recently catalogued commercial and studio photographs that Bryan kept, as well as highlighting some of the more prominent photographs within the collection.

Young women at Boschetto Agricultural College for Ladies, South Africa's only all-women's agricultural college.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Harrismith, Free State, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Philip Myburgh serving wine to boys at Joostenberg Wine Farm in Muldersvlei.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Muldersvlei, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa. 1948–1952.

The negatives were donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in packets labelled with brief one sentence descriptions and some accompanying primary documentation. In anticipation of restorage, the packets were labelled, the negatives removed, and then repacked into individual archival envelopes (themselves labelled, in order to maintain association with the original packets). Then, using an Epson Perfection V850 Pro, the negatives were scanned, with a record of progress kept on a basic database. Following this, a new record was created for each photograph on the Museum's collections management system, and a description written, as well as other details such as photographic process, date, geographical location, named persons and/or cultural groups, and associated 'class' and 'keyword' identifiers filled in. These latter tags can be used by researchers to search through the photographs using a theme or type as search criteria.

Views of Joostenberg Wine Farm. Philip Myburgh features in both photographs.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Muldersvlei, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa. 1948–1952.

It has not been possible to date all the photographs within the collection with exact precision, unless they capture a notable event or can be corroborated with other sources. Equally, the available evidence suggests that while Bryan did undertake commercial photography, he also took photographs of friends and family, and possibly developed close personal relations with individuals featured in the commercial photographs. The exact reason that Bryan took each photograph therefore remains unclear, as does the history of associated prints or usage thereafter.

Examples of still-life photographs, most likely taken by Bryan at his photographic studio 'Greenshutters', in the suburb of Newlands.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Close-up view of a woman's hands showing silver rings and floral skirt. This photograph was reproduced in the U.S. Camera Annual of 1951.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Bo-Kaap, Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Bryan's aptitude with a camera is passed on to us through his photographs. The framing is carefully composed, and he pays particular attention to the transition between foreground and background. The still life and studio photographs within the collection also demonstrate his skills in a controlled setting, tending to show close-up local flora and portraits of women. Alongside friend and fellow photographer John Parminter (otherwise known as John Adriaan), Bryan was the first South African photographer to be published in the U.S. Camera Annual in 1951 (and again in 1954).

Retreat Students' Clinic, a student-run NGO, later part of the Students' Health and Welfare Centres Organisation (SHAWCO).

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Retreat, Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Bryan seemed able to photograph where others were not. His photographs previously exhibited at the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2011 showed his work was a 'radical act' (Hopkinson in Newbury, 2013), since a white photographer would rarely visit black African and 'coloured' areas at the advent of apartheid. Whether Bryan had a guide on these visits is unknown, but he does not seem to have distanced himself from his subjects in the same way that other professional photographer's might have done. Again, there is a balance between aesthetic details and individuality which are reflected in his photographs.

A woman working on the bottling line at Nederburg Winery.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Paarl, Western Cape, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Nederburg Winery, including a grape press. A young girl, possibly a member of the owner's family, is working on the bottling line.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Paarl, Western Cape, South Africa. 1948–1952.

In 1948, the National Party gained power and began implementing their segregationist policy of apartheid in South Africa. The Group Areas Act, under which cities and towns were divided and people of colour forcibly removed, was one of the most harmful acts of this early apartheid period. The cataloguing process required placing Bryan's photographs in the context of the developing segregationist and unequal society. Bryan's commercial photographs illustrate the balance of political, social and economic power tipping towards 'Europeans' (used interchangeably to refer to white people at the time) who held authority over affluent and commercial settings.

Cooper's yard with men in the process of assembling a wine barrel.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Constantia, Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Portrait of a man, a cooper by profession, most likely part of the Cape Malay community in Cape Town.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Constantia, Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Bryan's photographs of a cooper's yard are particularly striking. The precision and details involved in cooperage are passed on to us through his meticulous use of a camera. Like an apprentice, it is possible to follow step-by-step the process of wine barrel-making, a form of generational heritage under threat from new manufacturing processes. Examples of Bryan's distinctive close-up portraiture are also included within this series of photographs.

Henri Loos (left) and Henri Berney (right) before their record-breaking journey from Cape Town to Algiers in 1951.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1951.

Competitors after reaching Cape Town, marking the end of the first Rallye Méditerranée-le Cap in 1951.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1951.

In the period following the Second World War, the idealised geopolitical fusion of Africa and Europe was on the minds of some political 'Western' powers; a so-called 'Eurafrica' was the aim (Brown, 2020). To pave the way in forming this partnership, wealthy retired military officers organised a biennial car race from Algiers to Cape Town, with the first participants taking to the road in 1951 in the inaugural Rallye Mediterranée-le Cap. Tracing accounts of the race through articles in Cape Times, it was possible to link some of Bryan's photographs to the day of the race's completion in Cape Town, even at times recording the names of participants photographed standing next to their cars.

Crowds gathering at Wingfield aerodrome to watch the arrival of the first Lockheed Constellation, 'Kaapstad', to arrive in South Africa.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Wingfield, Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Workers refuelling the Lockheed Constellation at Wingfield aerodrome. These photographs were contained in a packet labelled 'Shell refuelling Constellation'.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Wingfield, Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

With little contextual information beside brief labels on packets, it proved difficult to link photographs to historical events. The photographs above, for example, show a crowd gathered at Wingfield aerodrome to watch a plane land – but with Bryan's emphasis upon the plane's refuelling and the workers involved, the origins of the event were initially unclear. With some careful analysis of the internal contents of the photographs, alongside newspapers articles published in Cape Times, it was possible to pinpoint the event to that of the inaugural landing of the first Lockheed Constellation, or 'Connie', in South Africa – the final leg of a journey which began in the USA and was completed on 19 May 1950 at Wingfield aerodrome, 'where a public christening took place' (Friedberg, 2021).

Piet van Heerden (left), well known for his landscape and portrait studies; and Hilda Sacks (right), Cape Town pianist, member of the Progressive Music Society, who later joined the Finnish Symphony Orchestra.

Photographs by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Germaine Rouillard, weaving teacher and member of the Cape Guild of Weavers.

Photograph by Bryan Heseltine. Cape Town, South Africa. 1948–1952.

Bryan's photographs provide a part-documentary, part-sociological glance into mid-century Cape Town. The photographs shown here sway towards the commercial and artistic; and they tend to depict white people as a result. This speaks to the inequalities proliferating in South Africa at the time. For researchers the collection offers a vital resource to reflect upon the themes of affluence and inequality, as well as the continuities and discontinuities of commercial and studio photography in Cape Town. Commencing this dialogue with the past has been an insightful opportunity and one which I hope leads others to an imaginative and lasting reconnection in the present.

Oliver Anthony

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

4 October 2022

This is the first of two blog articles by Oliver Anthony on the subject of the Bryan Heseltine collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. His second (subsequent) article, titled 'View of "Apartheid's Festival": Bryan Heseltine's Photographs of the Van Riebeeck Festival Fair of 1952', is available online here.

Bibliography

Megan Brown, 'Le Rallye Mediterranée-le Cap: Racing towards Eurafrica?', French Politics, Culture and Society, 38 (2020), pp. 80–104.

Lionel Friedberg, The Flying Springbok: A History of South African Airways since its Inception to the Post-Apartheid Era (Winchester, Hampshire: John Hunt Publishing, 2021).

Darren Newbury, People Apart: 1950s Cape Town Revisited – Photographs by Bryan Heseltine (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2013).

People Apart: Cape Town Survey 1952 – Photographs by Bryan Heseltine (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 2011).

Documenting South India in the early twentieth century: Castes and tribes as photographed by Edgar Thurston

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 13:10:01 +0000

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Devaki Vadakepat Menon analyses a collection of photographic prints made in South India at the beginning of the twentieth century. She researches the context of the prints' production, which was a larger ethnographic project on the 'Castes and Tribes of Southern India', and digitises the extent of the material for a fuller understanding of this historic collection. Starting by discussing her interest in the subject, Devaki writes:

Throughout the period of my research on South Indian cultural practices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, I have seldom come across photographs from the state of Kerala. My search through many private albums and publications has mostly yielded Indian family and political portraits, postcards from India's many hill stations, and illustrations to support the ethnography of Northeast Indian and Naga tribes, many of which were locations of anthropological interest in colonial India. During this internship I initially wanted to investigate the Pitt Rivers Museum's photographs from the subcontinent to find those that were specifically from Kerala. I first looked through a series of boxes containing collections from the north and east of India, then Iran, present-day Pakistan and Sri Lanka. After a while searching, I was finally able to recognise the locale of photographs in one particular box. Box B14 [1998.214] opens to reveal a number of boards featuring mounted photographic prints from India. Among these are five boards labelled 'S. India' and 'India' that display a total of 76 black and white portraits taken in the modern-day South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The Edgar Thurston collection of photographs at the Pitt Rivers Museum

At first glance the boards appear to feature an arbitrary collection of photographs from the south that adheres to no particular theme. However, under each print is a handwritten label that describes the caste or tribe of the photographed individuals, and the activity which they are demonstrating. After a more focused survey of the five boards, the material appeared less random. From the way that the subjects were posed and dressed, often pictured in front of the same background, it became apparent that it was a study of the racial diversity across the four southern states of India that also highlighted a variety of livelihoods. Recurring themes in the photographs were subsequently identified. The subjects were deliberately photographed to reflect certain traits or points of recognition and the identification of various tribes within South Indian populations. In the two photographs below, for example, a Nair woman (highest caste) is portrayed with an upright hand-carved chair, whereas the two Gadaba women (lower caste) are depicted in a natural setting, perhaps indicative of a perceived level of primitive living by the photographer.

Left: A Nair woman from Kerala wearing an attigai and nagapandam (around her neck), mukkuti piercing on her nose, dressed in Nair attire (mundu waist-cloth and blouse) poses against a wooden chair. [Henry Balfour's associated caption on the mount board reads: 'Nairs'.] Circa 1900.

Right: Two Gadaba women from Andra Pradesh adorned in their kirre cloth which would be red, blue and white striped, khagla neck rings, and metal ornaments. The trunk of a tree and a building are visible in the background. [Balfour's associated caption reads: 'Gadabas'.] Circa 1900.

Among this material there are three main themes according to which most of the castes and tribes were photographed, being (a.) attire and caste-based traditions; (b.) religious practices; and (c.) marriage customs. However, not every community had all three types of photograph taken of them.

Ezhavan or Illuvan women in Kerala wearing their hair in topknots with waist-cloths, eating rice and stew while kneeling on the ground. It was forbidden for lower castes in the Hindu caste system to dine with or in the manner of the upper caste. [Henry Balfour's associated caption on the mount board reads: 'Iluvans Shivans eating rice kneeling (sitting at meals forbidden)'.] Circa 1900.

Nine men from the Mukkuvar or Mukkuvan caste, a maritime group consisting primarily of fishermen, pose in waist-cloths and thoppi koda umbrella hats. Men in the front row are seen wearing a cloth-based headband to support the thoppi koda. [Henry Balfour's associated caption on the mount board reads: 'Mukkuvans, Malabar fishermen'.] Circa 1900.

I was instantly drawn to this collection as being one of the oldest documentations of the various castes in the region that I have encountered. I developed a new interest in investigating the entirety of this collection of South Indian material, not just the photographs from Kerala. This included its origins, the reasons for specific recurring themes, and the original motivation behind the compilation and organisation of the material. Handwritten annotations on each of the mount boards indicate that the prints themselves were purchased by the Museum's first curator Henry Balfour from Edgar Thurston in 1906, although unfortunately there survives no written record of the acquisition among Balfour's correspondence nor in the Museum's accession registers. A search for the surname 'Thurston' on the Museum's database, however, reveals that the same person also donated musical instruments, among other objects, to the Pitt Rivers Museum – as well as a further twenty-one photographs not located in box B14.

The separation of the Thurston photographic material into different boxes confirms that it was subdivided according to theme. During the last decade of his life, Henry Balfour, Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum until 1939, organised the historic photograph collections according to geographical area and (typological) theme, with a different series of boxes and boards for each. This was likely because the B series was intended to display the racial characteristics of different groups and peoples, whereas the C series contextualised objects on display, demonstrated their uses, or illustrated items which perhaps could not be acquired for the Museum. The remainder of the Thurston collection of photographs is located in boxes including C2.1 and C2.2, classified under 'Archaeology'. Here, Edgar Thurston's photographs are split across four boards, with C2.1 labelled as 'Prehistoric' and C2.2 as 'Prehistoric and primitive sites: stone'.

A couple from the Vellalar caste in Tamil Nadu prostrate themselves on a snake stone shrine (pambu kavu) with the shiva lingam, serpents and the Hindu deity Ganesa to pray for the birth of children. The structure in the background is likely either a temple or house, as the shrine is built in front of a banyan tree, which is considered sacred and indicative of holy ground. [Henry Balfour's associated caption on the mount board reads: 'Offering prayers to snake shrine'. This photograph appears in Omens and Superstitions of Southern India and in volume 7 of Castes and Tribes of Southern India with the caption: 'Vellālas worshipping lingam, snake-stones and Ganēsa'.] Circa 1900.

The photographs in the C2 boxes show objects and landscapes but also include people from the castes portrayed in box B14. While scanning the prints, I noticed that some photographs captured more individuals in the frame, many looking at the camera with a bewildered expression. The C2 photographs are also of lower visual quality than the B14 portraits. Due to this, cropping the digitised scans to produce straight edges was a process that required unwavering attention – mainly because of rough or lopsided edges that upset the composition of the images if not cropped properly. The high-resolution scans also allowed for small details, such as in the photograph above, to be recognised. It is likely that some of them were copies made from earlier prints, or otherwise from the original glass plates.

Men and boys stare into the camera at a hook-swinging event. During this ritual a man is suspended from a wooden beam with metal hooks through his back. On the left a man can be seen carrying what appears to be a horn made out of elephant tusk, while in the centre another holds a large object above his head; flags and a large decorated structure are also visible at the centre of the image. Circa 1900.

Print made from a glass negative of a man attached to the end of a long wooden pole that is part of a larger wooden structure. He is suspended in the air and swung around with hooks attached through his back while a crowd watches on. Palm trees and several buildings are visible in the background. (The original glass plate from which this print was made was apparently cracked along its top half, with a fracture line visible running across the palm trees.) Circa 1900.

All of Thurston's photographs are marked with the letters 'Da' followed by a number (see above). This is speculated to be an identifier of some kind, but unfortunately Balfour provided no further information about this or about Edgar Thurston in his correspondence or the accession registers. The 'Da' numbers therefore remain a mystery, but obituaries and Thurston's own publications have helped in identifying him as well as in understanding the context of these photographs.

On Edgar Thurston

Edgar Thurston (1855–1935) served as Superintendent of the Madras Government Museum in British India, working there as an ethnologist and botanist. As an advocate of phrenology, he later turned to researching physiology and used anthropometric measurements as a tool to study the people of South India. Most of his phrenological observations and consequent deductions about the behaviours, physical features, traditions and perceived intelligence or 'savageness' of the various peoples of South India is reflected in his seven-volume Castes and Tribes of Southern India (1909) and its predecessor Ethnographic Notes in Southern India (1906). The introduction to the earlier volume details Thurston's appointment as director of the Madras Museum in Tamil Nadu, where he was offered the opportunity to conduct a survey of castes and tribes. This resulted in his seven-part series that recorded the manners, customs and physical characteristics of over three hundred castes and tribes in South India, which has been the subject of both praise and critique. Thurston's contemporaries in the West considered the volumes to be a remarkable addition to ethnographic research at the time, albeit perhaps also valuing its contribution to the reification of scientific racism. Western reviewers brought attention to the spectacle and value in the documentation of various relics of torture, slavery and mutilations practiced by 'primitive human life and society'. Yet they have also criticised the project for its lexical inaccessibility, lack of indexing and sparsely provided photographic context. Indian scholars belonging to castes that are studied in the series have criticised the work for inconsistencies, misrepresentations of worship, erroneous transliterations, and notable inaccuracies in the descriptions of various groups and their customs. It is likely that Thurston's interest in physiology and the taboo led to misrepresentation and exaggeration.

Title pages of Edgar Thurston's major publications, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India (1906) and Castes and Tribes of Southern India (1909), which relate mostly closely to his collection of photographs in the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Source: Edgar Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India (Madras: Government Press, 1906), title page (left); Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 7 vols. (Madras: Government Press, 1909), volume 1, title page (right)

The photographs in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collection, and also in the published books, do not at first appear to indicate an application of the phrenological gaze. However, Thurston writes in the official record that all photographed individuals had their cranial and nasal measurements taken. Additional comments elaborate further on Thurston's attempts to stage pictures showing individuals with 'ugly' features posed next to those with (what he called) slightly European features – likely intended to provide an emphasis on physiological difference. Thurston also raises his concerns with indigenous tribes gaining access to education, clothing, sanitation and modern infrastructure, stating that such 'Westernisation' risks the extinction of their exotic ways of life. In this context, the Thurston collection appears to demonstrate one of the most prevalent uses of photography in early anthropology: to record and display the 'other' for scientific and taxonomical purposes. Photographs of the side profile with a standard neutral background, such as in the two examples below, are indicative of a style of photography employed by anthropometrists. The straw background seen below is present in eight of the prints, and a similar background in a further three. It is difficult to say whether the photographs sharing the same backgrounds were all taken in the same location, or whether Thurston had portable studio screens.

Left: A Lingayat man presents the side profile of his upper abdomen and face. Three lines of tripundra are drawn across the arm, chest and forehead in sacred ash. A background of a straw wall is visible behind the man. [Henry Balfour's associated caption on the mount board reads: 'Linga Banajuga'. This photograph appears in volume 1 of Castes and Tribes of Southern India with the caption: 'Linga Banajiga'.] Circa 1900.

Right: A Lingayat man of the Bedar tribe from Karnataka presents the side of his upper abdomen and face. A background of a straw wall is visible behind the man. [Henry Balfour's associated caption reads: 'Broad Heads'. This photograph appears in volume 1 of Castes and Tribes of Southern India with the caption: 'Bedar'.] Circa 1900.

Context, content, credit and concluding thoughts

Only some of the photographs in the Pitt Rivers' collection are found in Edgar Thurston's two most relevant works, and not all of them are easily contextualised. The associated text does not always explain why the individuals in the images are clothed, posed or pictured in certain ways. However, the books are categorised into sections, such as 'omens and superstitions', 'death ceremonies', 'hook-swinging' and 'marriage customs'. I speculate that Thurston photographed the individuals for a Western audience, so that they serve as illustrations for various themes of spectacle. It is clear that these photographs intended to hone in on non-Western physiological features, and unusual or exotic practices and traditions. If these images had been taken as a record of the lives of the people in their entirety, I would have expected the photographer, in consultation with South Indian assistants, to focus on recognised variations in food practices, bathing rituals, textiles, crafts and child rearing – all of which would differ between most upper, middle and lower castes in South India and therefore provide a more representative catalogue of distinctions both large and small.

Men stare at the camera while inserting metal hooks into the back of a devotee, who is wearing beaded bell anklets and a belt that emit sound. [This photograph appears in volume 1 of Castes and Tribes of Southern India with the caption: 'Human Hook-swinging'.] Circa 1900.

The publication date of Thurston's first Castes and Tribes volume is three years after the date when the Pitt Rivers' collection of prints was acquired (1906). It is likely, therefore, that many of the images were requested after publication of the regular bulletins by the Madras Institute Press between 1900 and 1903. These bulletins included the research findings of ethnologists working at the Madras Museum; along with Ethnographic Notes in Southern India in 1906, which was also published in Britain. Since these texts were released ahead of the main seven-volume series, I speculate that Henry Balfour's interest in the contents of the books – especially photographs – led him to requesting and purchasing a set of prints of those that were yet to be published. However, Balfour only indicates that he purchased the prints from Thurston and does not record Thurston as photographer. After searching the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections database, I found that the Museum had previously identified Thurston as the photographer. But in the prefaces to his texts, Thurston extends some credit for the photography to an Indian ethnologist.

In the prefaces to both Castes and Tribes and his earlier Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, Thurston offers appreciation for the collaborative efforts of Kadambi Rangachari (K. Rangachari), the Assistant Superintendent of the Madras Government Museum. Yet the Dewan Bahadur-honour-winning Indian ethnologist's name does not appear with equal credit on the title pages of the books or in any of the other volumes. It is clear that some, if not most, of the prints were made from the negatives of photographs taken by him, but it is difficult to ascertain whether he was responsible for the entirety of the collection. Due to incomplete information, it would be difficult to add Rangachari's name to the database with certainty. Looking through Thurston's text also supported the idea of his own involvement, as it states that the indigenous people in the photographs were hesitant to interact with him. He notes in the preface of Volume 1 (Castes and Tribes) that Rangachari was in charge of the survey during his absence, and acted as interpreter, photographer and phonograph recorder. It is likely that, being a native of Madras, Rangachari and his fluency in Tamil and other South Indian languages may have allowed for more cordial interactions. It is very probable that Thurston took many of the photographs in the C series, because they appear to share an observational perspective, while the majority of the portraits may instead be Rangachari's.

Other inconsistencies include Henry Balfour's handwritten captions on the boards on which the photographic prints are glued. Of the ninety-eight photographs in total, only thirty are to be found in Thurston's published books on the topic. Furthermore, many of the captions in the books do not match those written by Balfour below the prints on the mount boards. Balfour's versions switch between providing more descriptive context and less, adding or changing accented letters, and incorporating parentheses. Information in these parentheses includes the type of physiological classification that Thurston assigns to individuals in his books, such as 'broad-head' and 'platyrrhine'. The attention placed on such classifications indicates the heavy influence of phrenology, anthropometry and other racial biases on the discipline of anthropological photography and ethnography in the early twentieth century. Nonetheless, I am astonished at how the Edgar Thurston collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum provides access to one of the earliest troves of photographic evidence of South India's diverse peoples, their ways of living and working, and the unifying presence of the same castes and tribes across geographical and political boundaries in the south of the country. The digitisation and research of photographic documentation of this kind is of pressing importance to understanding changing and obsolete ways of life in these states, and is an asset to the preservation of the seldom-recorded history of customs, traditions, and even entire groups of people throughout South Indian history.

Devaki Vadakepat Menon

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Phil.)

8 August 2022

Bibliography

'Castes and Tribes of Southern India' [book review], Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, 42 (1910), pp. 625–626.

'Edgar Thurston' [obituary], Current Science, 4 (1935), pp. 327–328.

Kathleen Gough, Rural Society in Southeast India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Grünwedel, 'Castes and Tribes of Southern India' [book review], Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, (43) 1911, pp. 176–177.

Shridhar V. Ketkar, 'Castes and Tribes of Southern India' [book review], American Anthropologist, New Series, 12 (1910), pp. 451–454.

Christopher Morton, 'Photography and the Comparative Method: The Construction of an Anthropological Archive', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18 (2012), pp. 369–396.'

Christopher Morton, 'The Place of Photographs in the Collections, Displays, and Other Work of General Pitt-Rivers', Museum History Journal, 7 (2014), pp. 168–187.

Christopher Pinney, Photography and Anthropology (London: Reaktion Books, 2011).

Edgar Thurston, 'Badagas and Irulas of the Nilgiris; Paniyans of Malabar; A Chinese-Tamil Cross; A Cheruman Skull; Kuruba or Kurumba; Summary of Results', Anthropology: Bulletin of the Madras Government Museum, 2 (1897), pp. 1–68.

(Available online at https://archive.org/details/281unkngoog/page/n6/mode/2up.)

Edgar Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India (Madras: Government Press, 1906).

(Available online at https://archive.org/details/ethnographicnote00thur/page/n5/mode/2up.)

Edgar Thurston, Omens and Superstitions of Southern India (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912).

(Available online at https://archive.org/details/b24855005/page/n9/mode/2up.)

Edgar Thurston, The Madras Presidency with Mysore, Coorg and the Associated States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913).

(Available online at https://archive.org/details/madraspresidency00thur/page/n5/mode/2up.)

Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 7 vols. (Madras: Government Press, 1909).

(Available online at https://archive.org/details/castestribesofso01thuriala/page/n5/mode/2up (volume 1), etc.)

The North through the eyes of another: Depicting Saami people in late nineteenth-century Norway

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 08:46:01 +0000

Commercially produced print of a Saami man holding the reins of a domesticated and tethered reindeer on which sits a young child, captioned 'Lap med rensdyr'.

Photographer unknown. Norway. Circa 1888.

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Annabelle Hondier discusses two related collections of late nineteenth-century photographs of Saami people living in northern Norway, drawing on original material collected and later organised by the Pitt Rivers Museum's first curator Henry Balfour. Introducing the subject by considering the position of the Saami people during the nineteenth century, Annabelle writes:

Two distinct but related collections of late nineteenth-century photographs held in the Pitt Rivers Museum demonstrate many aspects of the lifestyle of a group of Saami people living in northern Norway. The Saami are from Sápmi (Lapland), an area that covers the uppermost parts not only of Norway but also of Sweden, Finland and western Russia. These original prints brought to Oxford, which date mostly from around the 1880s, reveal that a number of both well-known and also less established (non-Saami) European photographers were interested in photographing the Saami people at this particular moment in history.

The Saami people in Norway

The late nineteenth century, when the photographs in these two collections were taken, was a significant time in the history of the Saami people in Norway. This was due to various developments in Norwegian history – and thus in Norwegian-Saami relations too – during the 1800s. On 17 May 1814, Norway created its own constitution after the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway dissolved, when Denmark signed the Treaty of Kiel in January of the same year, ceding Norway to Sweden. Christian Frederick, son of Frederick Prince of Denmark, led the resistance against the treaty by convening the Norwegian Constituent Assembly in April, which signed the Norwegian Constitution formalising Norway's independence from Denmark. However, in the summer of 1814, after the Swedish-Norwegian war, Norway was forced into the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, which lasted until 1905. Under this agreement, Norway was ruled by the Swedish monarch, initially Charles XIII, but maintained its own constitution and parliament (the Storting). Today, 17 May is still celebrated annually as the national day of Norway.

In light of these events, the nineteenth century gave rise to increasing Norwegian nationalism. Saami people, and another ethnic minority group, the Kvens, were considered to be 'abnormal', and so were forced to leave behind their language and traditions, as efforts were made by the Norwegian government to create a unified and homogenous Norwegian culture. Christian missionary work, especially that occurring in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had laid the groundwork for the government to enact 'Norwegianization' (Fornorsking av samer) of the Saami and Kvens as policy. In 1851, the Storting set aside a budget for the teaching of the Norwegian language to Saami people, the first in a series of assimilation policies from Norway's government. Another significant moment was in 1899, when a document known as the Wexelsenplakaten was released by the Norwegian Ministry of Church and Education. It instructed teachers that the use of the Saami or Kven languages in classrooms should be avoided as much as possible.

Such discrimination against Saami people is not extinct. In recent years the Saami have been subject to environmental racism, which the Oxford Dictionary of Environment and Conservation defines as '[i]ntentional or unintentional racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, enforcement of regulations and laws, and targeting of communities for the disposal of toxic waste and siting of polluting industries.' Between 1979 and 1981 many Saami people protested against the construction of the Alta Dam, the original proposal for which would have resulted in the flooding of a Saami village and the interruption of traditional reindeer migration routes. Recently, in Sweden, a mine has been approved by the government on indigenous land, which has been widely condemned by indigenous rights activists and environmental activists. It is in this socio-political context, of historic and ongoing discrimination and forced assimilation, that the Balfour photographs must be considered.

Henry Balfour's whaling trip to Norway (1888)

The collections of photographs from Norway were brought to Oxford by the Pitt Rivers Museum's first curator, Henry Balfour. From August to September 1888, he made a journey along the country's northern coast, with the aim of investigating local whaling practices, which he wrote about in an article published the following year, titled 'The Fin Whale Fishery in North Lapland'. The handwritten diary which Balfour kept details his travels; and a photograph album [1998.61] likely assembled by his companion, a curator at the Buckinghamshire County Museum named Alfred Heneage Cocks, serves as a visual accompaniment to Balfour's written record. Several photographs taken by Cocks show Norwegian whalers at work, capturing [1998.61.50, 1998.61.52] and subsequently flaying and butchering [1998.61.53, 1998.61.54] the mammals. Many other images, however, are depictions of the Saami people whom Balfour and Cocks met along their route. Balfour's manuscript diary, his photograph album, and the captions for the images he collected refer to the Saami as 'Lapps': this historic term is now considered derogatory, and today the word 'Saami' (also spelled 'Sámi' or 'Sami') is used.

Page from the photograph album of Henry Balfour's and Alfred Cocks' voyage to northern Norway, featuring two prints depicting groups of Saami people.
Photographs by Alfred H. Cocks. Norway. 1 September 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.61.36–.37)

In Henry Balfour's diary entry of 1 September 1888, he writes that 'Cocks photographed some groups of Lapps' that morning; and we can see these same photographs on a page in his album (above). Cocks' annotations around the photographs provide the names of several of the figures depicted, as well as their roles, so we can ascertain that they were crew members whom Cocks and Balfour sailed with on their journey. Some of the men are identified as skippers, such as Elias and Philip, who appear in both pictures; others are referred to as Russian or Norwegian 'Sea Lapps' (Sea Saami), meaning that they were Saami who practised fishing and sailing, and lived near the coast.

Page from the photograph album of Henry Balfour's and Alfred Cocks' voyage to northern Norway, showing two prints of a Saami man pictured aboard the ship Orion.
Photographs by Alfred H. Cocks. Norway. 12 August 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.61.1–.2)

Another pair of images (see above), dated 12 August 1888, depicts a man identified in the caption (likely mispelled) as 'Andresen Baerk', a forty-four-year-old Saami man from Kautokeino, wearing a traditional Saami 'Four Winds' hat (čiehgahpir). He is photographed on board the ship Orion, which Balfour's diary tells us he travelled to Vardö in.

Page from the photograph album of Henry Balfour's and Alfred Cocks' voyage to northern Norway, showing two prints depicting Saami women.
Photographs by Alfred H. Cocks. Norway. September 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.61.40–.41)

Alfred Cocks also photographed a Saami family of women (above); and he recorded their names, and the details of whom they were related to, with a thoroughness that suggests Cocks and Balfour spent some time with this family. The number of photographs in the album of Saami people, often accompanied by some additional written information about them, demonstrates that Balfour's and Cock's voyage was not only about observing whaling practices in the country: they were also interested in the ethnographic study of Saami people as well.

Henry Balfour's collection of photographs of Saami people ('B series')

Balfour's manuscript diary contains sketches of an area called Hammerfest, and he mentions buying photographs there on 12 August 1888. It is therefore likely that this is the provenance of the prints of Hammerfest in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collection. Hammerfest is quite far from Tromsdalen in Tromsø, the area where most of the other photographs were taken, so it is doubtful that Balfour also acquired these photographs at the same time. More probably he gathered them in Tromsø (before travelling to Hammerfest), and possibly obtained them from 'Dreyer's shop' there, where he writes that he bought some reindeer skins.

'Parti fra Tramördalen, Nordland.' [Party from Tramördalen, Nordland.] Two children in a Saami settlement in a valley near Tromsdalen.
Photograph by Knud Knudsen. Near Tromsdalen, Tromsø, Troms og Finnmark, Norway. Circa 1873.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.1.1)

The majority of the photographs that Balfour brought back from his trip depict a group of Saami originally from Karesuando, in Sweden, who had settled in a valley near Tromsdalen, Tromsø. One image [1998.259.1.1, above] shows a particularly good view of this valley, with the mountains of Tromsdalstinden visible in the distance. The Tromsdalen settlement here looks small and sparse, with typical Saami structures dotted around the landscape. In the centre of the picture, behind the children, is a suongeri, a kind of drying rack used to dry meat and fish. Also visible are peat huts like the one seen in the image below [1998.259.8], called a goahti in the northern Saami language and gamme in Norwegian. These were constructed from curved trees that grew on the mountainside and covered with peat moss. A hole would be left in the roof so that fires could be built inside the dwelling, and you can see clouds of smoke in some of these photographs as evidence [1998.259.10.2, 1998.259.11.2]. Such goahti are more permanent structures than another kind of Saami dwelling, a kind of tent called a laavu, so these images suggest that this group of Saami in Tromsdalen occupied a fairly permanent settlement in the valley. Balfour's diary entry dated 11 August 1888, describing his visit to this settlement, indicated that it was established in this location for the duration of the summer season: 'I then went to the Fjeld Lapp encampment (Karesuando Lapps) established for the summer in a valley.'

'Lapps from Karesuando encamped at Tromsdalen' (original caption). Eighteen Saami people, including two infants in baskets, pose in front of a traditional Saami hut or shelter (goahti).
Photographer unknown. Tromsdalen, Tromsø, Troms og Finnmark, Norway. Circa 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.8)

A number of different photographers captured images of this Saami group in Tromsdalen, further suggesting that they remained in this area for some time. One such photographer was the prolific Norwegian photography pioneer Knud Knudsen, who photographed Norway and its people extensively. A comparison, directly below, of his image of two children in the Tromsdalen settlement [1998.259.14.5] with another photograph he took of a Saami child in Hammerfest [1998.259.14.6] illuminates the different ways in which separate groups of Saami people lived.

'Tromsdal' (original caption). Two Saami children with dog, in Saami summer settlement in the Tromsdalen valley, with peat huts (goahti) and a drying rack (suongeri).
Photograph by Knud Knudsen. Tromsdalen, Tromsø, Troms og Finnmark, Norway. Circa 1873.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.14.5)

'Et hus i Hammerfest, K. K. B.' (printed caption). [A house in Hammerfest, K. K. B.] Sea Saami boy poses in Hammerfest, outside a hut with fish hanging on a pole to dry.
Photograph by Knud Knudsen. Hammerfest, Troms og Finnmark, Norway. Circa 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.14.6)

At the Hammerfest settlement, the boy wears a cap with a brim, a dark jacket, trousers and knee-high books – in stark contrast to the long tunics and brimless fabric or wool hats worn by the Tromsdalen children. The boy leans on a hut behind him, as does a large stick that suspends dozens of gutted fish hanging in the air to dry. This images suggests the boy is part of a Sea Saami group that would have primarily made their livelihood from fishing. In the photographs of the Tromsdalen group, there is some indication of possible fishing activity. In one image [1998.259.9.2], the hats worn by three men (two in the back row on the far right, and another in the back row third from left) are typical of fishermen. However, the suongeri (drying racks) visible in several of the Tromsdalen pictures hold animal skins, antlers and textiles but no fish, suggesting that this group did not fish on any significant scale. Rather, these Saami would likely have hunted wild reindeer and farmed to source food. Hunting would have been assisted by their dogs, and reindeer meat would have been a major dietary staple. Domesticated reindeer were also kept by the Saami as a source of milk, and also to carry items. These animals can be seen in the print below [1998.259.9.1], and in several of the pictures carved wood reindeer milking pails can be identified, such as the one held by a woman in the centre of one group photograph [1998.259.9.2].

'Lapps and reindeer from Karesuando' (original caption). Saami man with five reindeer carrying items including reindeer skins, with a boat visible on the water behind.
Photographer unknown. Norway. Circa 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.9.1)

An unidentified photographer from the firm of J. Valentine & Co., a Dundee-based photography business, also took a series of portraits of Saami people. This company's employees travelled to photograph many different countries with the intention that their images would be printed as tourist postcards; and it is useful to keep this tourist audience in mind when looking at how this photographer's images depict Saami people. The Valentine pictures each have carefully devised compositions, and the photographer seems to have given his subjects thorough instruction as to how they should pose. The four prints in the collection attributed to the Valentine company [1998.259.6.1, 1998.29.6.3, 1998.259.16.1, 1998.259.18.2] have settings that vary slightly, but all appear to be taken outside the same building, where the photographer has attempted to prepare appropriate backgrounds for his portraits. In three of the images, a black tarpaulin has been hung up to cover the wooden wall and better frame the pictures' subjects, while in the remaining image, seen below, a tartan cloth is pinned back to create a diagonal line framing the figure seated beneath it, mirrored by an antler attached to the wall, forming a triangular composition. The man in this photograph has long hair and a large moustache, and he wears a soft hat punctured with a hole, and an overcoat made of reindeer skin. In his left hand he clutches a knife, and in his right hand he hold a pair of mittens, while a piece of twine is wrapped around his index finger. On the ground, between his feet, spread apart in a wide, firm stance, sits his dog, whose front paws rest on some kind of woven textile. His face is weathered and his brow is wrinkled as his gaze meets the viewer's own. The way that the photographer had portrayed this man frames him as a strong leader, and accentuates his ability to hunt. The photograph offers, therefore, an exoticised view of the man – and, by extension, of the Saami people in general – which emphasises his roughness. To an urban-dwelling and middle-class tourist who might have brought a postcard of this image home, the depiction of this Saami man as coarse and rugged would have presented a stark, perhaps exciting, fantasy of the other.

'A mountain Lapp' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown (possibly William Dobson Valentine). Norway. Circa 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.18.2)

An image of a group of boys also by the Valentine photographer is similar, but offers greater shock value to the tourist (see below). Here, seven boys are clustered together outdoors, and some reindeer hides are just visible hanging up to their left. The makeshift character of this temporary studio is noticeable, perhaps the result of an effort by the photographer to emphasise that this location is far from 'civilisation'. The central figure sits on a barrel, and the boy to his left on an upturned metal pail, while another boy rests on a table covered with the same tartan cloth used in the background of the picture of the single hunter. All the boys wear matching dress: soft hats with tall contrasting trim and high-collared tunics, sometimes with patterned scarves tucked inside. The shocking element of this photograph is the wolfskin which the boy at the centre of the image holds on his lap. Its eyes gleam, its jaw hangs open, and its paws appear to have scalloped fabric sewn onto their reverse, a technique more easily observable in another portrait of a Saami family [1998.259.6.3]. The precociousness of this pack of young hunters is clearly what the photographer wishes to draw his audience's attention to, in contrast to the older lone hunter. For a non-Saami audience, the message that Saami children are trained to kill early would no doubt have proved startling. The prominence of animal skins and hunting paraphernalia present in all four of the Valentine photographs indicates a desire on the part of this photographer – and thus his commercial consumers too – for images of (apparently) 'wild' Saami people.

'Lapp boys. Norway' (printed caption). Group of seven boys pictured outdoors with an animal skin.
Photographer unknown (possibly William Dobson Valentine). Norway. Circa 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.16.1)

Several other studio portraits of Saami people in the Balfour collection were taken by a photographer called Johan Jørgen Broch Wickstrøm. Born in Tromsø in 1855, his father was also a photographer. An example of a portrait by Wickstrøm, below, shows a Saami man in a 'Four Winds' hat, who looks into the distance and clutches his tobacco pipe.

Studio portrait of a Saami man in 'Four Winds' hat (čiehgahpir) holding a tobacco pipe.
Photograph by Johan Jørgen Broch Wickstrøm. Tromsø, Troms og Finnmark, Norway. Circa 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.18.1)

The identities of most of the people in Wickstrom's portraits have been lost to time, but we do know a little about one man. The image below [1998.259.17.2] is captioned 'Lars Blinde' – but these are not the man's first and last names. Rather, he is 'Blinde Lars', or blind Lars. As well as being photographed by Wickstrøm, this man was also portrayed in an 1874 drawing by Adolph Tidemand, a painter in the genre of Norwegian romantic nationalism. The drawing, completed much earlier than the photograph, shows Lars with his face downcast and in shadow. His hands rest on his walking stick, and he is wearing a suit, an overcoat and laced brogues. He looks pensive, but, more significantly, he does not look Saami. There are many possible reasons as to why these two portrayals of this man are so different, and the genre of Tidemand's work is an important consideration here. Norwegian nationalists rejected Saami culture and wanted the Saami people to 'Norwegianize' by leaving their own language, traditions and clothing behind. Therefore, it is possible that Tidemand did not want to portray this man in Saami dress, and may have asked him to change into clothes which did not reflect his identity. Alternatively, the drawing might not be entirely true to life, and Tidemand may have altered Lars' clothing during the sketching process. On the other hand, however, it is also possible that Wickstrøm asked his subjects to dress in the most 'Saami-looking' clothes they owned, in order to portray them as markedly 'other'. These differences between the two depictions of the same man throw into relief the constructed nature of these images, and they remind us that early photographs of the Saami are not necessarily accurate reflections of life, nor were they taken without an agenda.

'Lars Blinde' (caption). [Blind Lars.] Portrait of a blind man wearing a reindeer-skin coat in the 'hand-in-waistcoat' pose.
Photograph by Johan Jørgen Broch Wickstrøm. Tromsø, Troms og Finnmark, Norway. Circa 1888.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.17.2)

Another image that provides a stark reminder of the questionable 'reality' of these photographs is shown below [1998.259.19.1]. Two Saami women are pictured in a studio, and they pose on a plinth. On the left, a standing woman gazes down lovingly at her baby in the basket she cradles. The other figure on the right mimes for the camera, reaching with a spoon into an empty container as if ladling food into the bowl which she holds. However, neither of these figures are Saami women: instead they are wax models. It is interesting to note that – since these carved figures could have been depicted doing any activity – the sculptor and photographer have chosen to portray the Saami women in domestic roles, caring for children and cooking. Here, Western and Norwegian stereotypes of gender are reinforced, and applied to the Saami too. This photograph was taken by the studio of Wilhelm August Eurenius and Peter Ludvig Quist, which was based a long way from Balfour's route, in Stockholm. The mannequins were sculpted by Carl August Söderman, who appears to have been of some repute, as his wax model work was displayed at the 1867 Paris International Exhibition. Faint traces of green and pink tint the plinth in the image – remnants of the hand-painted colour that once adorned this print, but which has deteriorated over time.

Studio portrait of two wax figures, one holding a baby carrier (left), the other posed in food preparation (right).
Photograph by the Wilhelm Abraham Eurenius and Peter Ludvig Quist studio ('W. A. Eurenius & P. L. Quist'). Stockholm, Sweden. Circa 1867.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.259.19.1)

Another example of the same photograph exists within the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections [1941.8.52], suggesting that this image was commercially available fairly widely to those interested in the Saami. The fact that the figures in this image can be so easily mistaken for real people provides a useful warning to exercise caution when studying historical documents.

Conclusion

The two collections of photographs from Norway described in this article highlight certain aspects of Saami life and culture, such as the types of dwellings which the people constructed, or the significance of reindeer and their manifold uses. However, what the photographs demonstrate best is how non-Saami Europeans chose to portray Saami people towards the end of the nineteenth century, when photography was still in its relative infancy in Norway. These images provide clear examples of how the Saami were depicted by photographers during a period when their rights and culture were threatened by the Norwegian government's attempts to enforce assimilation. Alfred Cocks' photographs, Henry Balfour's diary account, and the photographic prints collected by Balfour together constitute an array of undoubtedly flawed Saami representation from outside, and so speak to the necessity of criticality when interpreting photographic sources.

Annabelle Hondier

University of Oxford postgraduate (History of Art and Visual Studies, reading for M.St.)

12 July 2022

Bibliography

Amnesty International (Sweden), 'Regeringen Godkänner Gruva i Gállok' [The Government Approves a Mine in Gállok], <https://www.amnesty.se/aktuellt/regeringen-godkanner-gruva-i-gallok/> (accessed 12 July 2022).

Henry Balfour, 'The Fin Whale Fishery in North Lapland', Midland Naturalist, 12 (1889), pp. 1–14.

Andrea Elviken, 'The Genesis of Norwegian Nationalism', Journal of Modern History, 3 (1931), pp. 365–391.

Philip Grover, 'Travels in Finland and Bosnia-Herzegovina: An Ethnographic Collection of Sir Arthur Evans', <https://www.cabinet.ox.ac.uk/travels-in-finland-and-bosnia-herzegovina> (accessed 12 July 2022).

Eeva-Kristiina Harlin, 'Repatriation as Knowledge Sharing – Returning the Sámi Cultural Heritage', in Mille Gabriel and Hens Dahl (eds.), Utimut: Past Heritage – Future Partnerships: Discussions on Repatriation in the 21st Century (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 2008), pp. 192–200.

Svein Jentoft, Henry Minde and Ragnar Nilsen (eds.), Indigenous Peoples: Resource Management and Global Rights (Delft: Eburen Academic Publishers, 2004).

Sigrid Lien, 'Not "Just Another Boring Tree" – Landskapet Som Identitetsmarkør i Norsk og Samisk Fotografi', Kunst og Kultur, 97 (2014), pp. 148–160.

Sigrid Lien, 'Performing Academic Masculinity in the Arctic: Sophus Tromholt and Roland Bonaparte's Photographic Accounts of Sámi Peoples and Northern Landscapes', Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 10/4 (2018), <https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2018.1498677> (accessed 12 July 2022).

Sigrid Lien, 'The Aesthetic of the Bear Hunt: Contemporary Photography in the Ecology of a Sámi Museum', in Elizabeth Edwards and Sigrid Lien (eds.), Uncertain Images: Museums and the Work of Photographs (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2014), pp. 95–112.

Sigrid Lien and Hilde Wallem Nielssen, 'Negotiating the Past: Addressing Sámi Photography', Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 10/4 (2018), <https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2018.1510646> (accessed 12 July 2022).

Karen McVeigh, '"This New Snow Has No Name": Sami Reindeer Herders Face Climate Disaster', The Guardian, 17 December 2021, <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/17/new-snow-no-name-sami-reindeer-herders-climate-disaster> (accessed 12 July 2022).

Christopher Morton, 'Photography and the Comparative Method: The Construction of an Anthropological Archive', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18 (2012), pp. 369–396.'

Nasjonalmuseet (National Museum, Oslo), 'Adolph Tidemand, "Blinde Lars"', <https://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/collection/object/NG.K_H.B.04509> (accessed 12 July 2022).

Chris Park, A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

By land and sea: Miss Dent's two travel postcard albums

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 08:27:00 +0000

Commercial postcard showing a view of the Egyptian port city of Suez, captioned 'SUEZ/ Vue générale'.

Photographer unknown; published by Ephtimios Frères. Suez, Egypt. Undated, circa 1920.

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Aayushi Gupta examines two albums of commercial photographic postcards compiled by a mysterious figure indicated only as 'Miss I. Dent' (from a handwritten label). Drawing upon her previous research on twentieth-century postcards and their sale and exchange, Aayushi analyses how and why the two albums were compiled, and looks to understand whether Miss Dent herself made the journeys according to the routes indicated by their narrative structure. She writes:

Last summer I interned with the Photograph and Manuscript Collections department of the Pitt Rivers Museum, researching two large bound albums created in the first half of the twentieth century by a woman named 'Miss Dent'. The albums feature more than two hundred picture postcards of seventy-two countries spanning Asia, Europe, the Americas and North Africa. Little is known about Miss Dent except that she collected the postcards in the albums and curated them according to a specific logic. Turning through the pages of Miss Dent's postcard albums, I questioned how had she collected all these postcards? Had Miss Dent travelled to all these places and purchased them herself? Had she instead been sent these postcards by friends and family travelling to these regions? Or had she purchased them at her local post office?

Two facing pages from Miss Dent's first album of commercial postcards showing five postcards from Sri Lanka and India, including Colombo (Gaffoor Building, top left) and Mumbai (Victoria Terminus, top right).

As part of my MPhil dissertation this year, I have been visiting picture postcard fairs and interviewing postcard dealers. One of them, Simon, told me that he had once bought a postcard album containing overseas postcards, all addressed to a lady in Constitution Hill in Birmingham city centre. He said that from the postcards in the album it seemed that the lady had been to various countries around the world. But it was also that case that all those postcards had been addressed to her, with different messages. After examining the postcards for a while, Simon realised that she had sent all the postcards back to herself, addressing them all to her home, and had made it look like they were sent from different people. Based on this example, we might propose that Miss Dent may also have travelled to all the countries represented on the picture postcards in her albums and posted them back to herself – except that all the postcards in her albums are unused and postally unmarked. With the assistant curator's help, I removed some of the postcards from the albums to find that indeed they had been unused.

Facing album pages showing scenes along the route of the Suez Canal, from Port Said on the Mediterranean coast (in the north) to the seaport of Suez in the Gulf of Suez (south) on the Red Sea.

Despite the fact that these postcards are postally unused and unmarked, it is possible that Miss Dent did travel to the places depicted on the postcards, and posted them to herself. Alternatively, it is possible that she may have been sent these postcards by her friends and family travelling to these places. In the early 1900s, during the heyday of picture postcards, not all postcards were actually posted, and some people would often send postcards in envelopes. Writing about British Indian picture postcards, anthropologists Stephen Hughes and Emily Stevenson note that a large number of postcards were not sent through the mail. Nevertheless, 'these blank postcards were saved, collected, and moved' from one location to various other locations. From their very outset, picture postcards were used as both epistolary objects and collectibles. Hughes and Stevenson note that most of the historical postcards still circulating via commercial postcard dealers in the United Kingdom today are unsent postcards that have been sourced and dispersed from personal picture postcard collections. It is thus possible that Miss Dent may have sent the postcards comprising the Dent collection to herself, or that she may have been sent these by friends and family travelling to the places depicted.

Facing album pages showing views of the buildings along the grand avenues of Algiers, including the Place de Théâtre (top left) and the Post Office building (top right).

It is also possible that she may have purchased the postcards at her local post office, or at her local stationer's. It is hard to gauge which of the above methods Miss Dent employed to gather the postcards for her collection, since we do not know very much about her. As others have done, I tried to identify Miss Dent, but to our dismay we could not do so. Future researchers wishing to engage with this collection and seeking to identify Miss Dent could perhaps browse family history websites for better luck.

Unable to unveil the anonymity of Miss Dent, I spent my time leafing through the pages of her two large postcard albums, engaging with the narratives that they present to their viewer. I was fascinated by the enormous variety of countries represented in the collection. In order to understand the extent of this, I created a personalised Google Map and pinned all the places represented on the postcards in Miss Dent's albums in the order in which they were arranged.

Map showing the four different travels circuits which reflect the narrative structures and individual postcards found in Miss Dent's two compiled albums.

Doing this revealed that the postcards have been arranged roughly according to four popular travel circuits in the twentieth century. The first album begins with picture postcards of different places in Japan, followed by postcards of places in Indonesia and Malaysia among other Southeast Asian countries, then by postcards of Sri Lanka, and then by those of Mumbai. These postcards have been arranged according to a journey that would have been taken by sea. This arrangement is followed by postcards of the Suez Canal, different places in North Africa, and then by postcards of Southern European countries. This arrangement too suggests a journey that would have been taken by sea.

The second album begins with picture postcards of North America, including New York City, and Washington, D.C., followed by postcards of Southern California, suggesting a journey that would have been made overland. These are followed by postcards of different places in the Caribbean islands, and then by postcards of places in Latin America. This arrangement suggests a journey that would have been taken by sea and over land. The second album ends with postcards of different places in Scandinavia, suggesting a journey that would have been made overland.

Two facing pages from Miss Dent's second album of postcards showing views of landmark buildings in New York City, including the Queensboro Bridge (top left), the Municipal Building (bottom left) and Pershing Square (top right).

It was amazing to me that Miss Dent had managed to arrange her postcard collection according to these popular travel circuits that she may or may not have ventured upon herself. Assuming that she had not, I wondered, how did she come to arrange her postcard collection in this way? An explanation for this could be that she may have been engaging with the multiple travel magazines, booklets and brochures which were circulating in the 1920s, the period to which Miss Dent's albums are dated. This travel-related print culture was being produced by travel agencies, such as the famed Thomas Cook, that wished to advertise their world tours. The most popular means of travel at the time were trains and ocean liners, which explains why postcards in Miss Dent's album have been arranged according to journeys that would have been taken by sea or over land. There is some evidence to suggest that through the arrangement of her postcards, Miss Dent depicts a journey that would have been taken by air. For instance, the postcards of places in the Caribbean are followed by postcards of Hawaii. This could suggest a journey that would have been taken by air, but it also suggests one by sea. Most of the arrangement of the postcards, though, do suggest journeys that would have been taken over land by train, or across sea by ocean liner.

Facing album pages showing views of the dramatic landscape in Norway, including scenes near Hardanger (left) and the Hardanger Fjord (top right).

What is further interesting is that Miss Dent arranges her postcards with great care: the countries follow each other as they would in an actual journey, and she also includes postcards depicting specific routes and journeys, like the one of a conventional trip through the Suez Canal. Her attention to detail and inclusion of postcards of journeys suggests her close reading of these travel magazines and brochures, which detailed every aspect of the voyage that they advertised. Despite her mysterious identity, the exactness with which Miss Dent arranges the postcards in her collection is rather profound, and both this and the larger collection itself demonstrates the impact that travel had on the public imagination in the early 1900s.

Aayushi Gupta

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Phil.)

24 June 2022

'Everything was there': Amara bin Thuqub reminisces

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 18:29:00 +0000

During the last two years, while the rest of the country was on furlough or in lockdown, the Pitt Rivers Museum's photograph collections department has continued to respond to enquiries about the collections, sending information and image files, and continuing to facilitate research visits in person where possible. Last September, after England's third national lockdown and as the imposed restrictions were easing, we hosted a visit from writer Leon McCarron and photographer Emily Garthwaite. They were in a state of some excitement. Recently they had located, they told me, one of Sir Wilfred Thesiger's original guides, Amara bin Thuqub, his favourite 'canoe-boy' and the local guide who had accompanied the Englishman during his seven years spent living and travelling in the marshes of southern Iraq during the 1950s. Now an elderly man in his nineties, Bin Thuqub had agreed to meet the pair at his home in Baghdad the following month, to talk about those years travelling and doctoring with Thesiger, which had been immortalised in the latter's classic travel account The Marsh Arabs (1964).

Amara bin Thumb (right) holding a portrait of himself as a young man taken by Wilfred Thesiger in 1958.

Photograph by Leon McCarron. December 2021.

It would be the scoop of a lifetime, and one which also reflects the human cost wrought on a country and region by dictatorship and the increasing effects of climate change. You can read the full article by Leon McCarron and Mohammed Al Sarai in AramcoWorld magazine available online here. You can read another recent article by McCarron, featuring photographs by Emily Garthwaite, in Noēma magazine online here.

Philip Grover

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

19 April 2022

Bibliography

Leon McCarron, 'The Last of the Marsh Arabs', Noēma, 2 (Summer 2021).

Leon McCarron and Mohammed Al Sarai [Mohammed Shiaa], 'The Marsh Guide and the English Explorer', AramcoWorld, 73/2 (March/April 2022), pp. 16–23.

Wilfred Thesiger, Desert, Marsh and Mountain: The World of a Nomad (London, 1979).

Wilfred Thesiger, 'Marsh Dwellers of Southern Iraq', National Geographic Magazine, 113 (1958), pp. 204–239.

Wilfred Thesiger, The Life of My Choice (London, 1987).

Wilfred Thesiger, 'The Ma'dan or Marsh Dwellers of Southern Iraq', Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, 41 (1954), pp. 4–25.

Wilfred Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs (London, 1964).

Wilfred Thesiger, 'The Marsh Arabs of Iraq', Geographical Magazine, 27 (1954–1955), pp. 138–144.

Wilfred Thesiger, 'The Marshmen of Southern Iraq', Geographical Journal, 120 (1954), pp. 272–281.

On a portrait of the Rani of Sivagangai: Towards a biography of an 'ethnographic' photograph

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 20:44:00 +0000

Portrait of the Rani of Sivagangai ('Ranee of Shevagunga'), acquired by Dr John Shortt by or before 1870.

Photographer unknown. Sivagangai, India. Undated, circa 1863.

In this blog article, graduate student Aayushi Gupta discusses a hand-coloured photograph of Kathama Nachiar, the Rani of Sivagangai, who inherited and ruled her family's landed estate in the Madras Presidency of India between 1863 and 1877. Analysing the print for its historical context and location in an unusual compiled album, and researching the background of its female subject, Aayushi writes:

In the photograph collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum is a large, reddish-brown, leather-bound album titled in gold lettering 'Anthropological Society – Photographs & Drawings'. On the basis of its contents, this album seems to have been started around 1867 by the Anthropological Society of London (ASL), an offshoot of the Ethnological Society of London (ESL) – both of which later merged in 1871 to form the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Figures 1 and 2. Front and back covers of the Anthropological Society of London album [accession number 1998.80].

The album contains visual material shown at meetings of the ASL in the years around 1867, and kept for the reference of fellows, presumably in its library or museum. The album accumulated material over time, as the Society's members supplemented their paper presentations with photographs and drawings. The album contains a diverse range of imagery including photographs from Africa, India and Australia, drawings of crania, archaeological plans and sections, maps, photographs of stone tools, etc.

I was drawn to a very particular image in this album: a hand-painted photograph [1998.80.93] captioned 'Ranee of Shevagunga' and 'presented by Dr. Shortt' (see figure 3 below). Intrigued, I set myself the task of exploring the social life of this Indian photograph. Specifically, I wanted to examine how its meaning and value had shifted over time, from the point of its production, to when it came into Dr Shortt's possession, to when it was presented to the ASL and became a part of this album.

Figure 3. The hand-painted photograph of the Rani of Sivagangai located on page 41 (top left) of the Anthropological Society of London album.

The donor of the photograph was Dr John Shortt (1822–1899), a colonial medical officer and veterinary surgeon in Madras with wider interests in botany, biology and anthropology. Shortt was an avid collector of 'ethnographic data'. He was also a member of various anthropological and ethnological societies in Britain and Europe. He presented several papers at the meetings of both the ASL and the ESL between 1861 and 1874, on topics including human and veterinary medicine, anthropology and natural history. These were then published in the two Societies' journals.

As common practice then dictated, Shortt also presented various materials including photographs, hand-drawn illustrations, fifteen crania 'obtained from the Shevagunga Zemindary' (Shortt, 1870: xvii), and a 'skeleton of a male Hindu (Soudra)' (Royal Anthropological Institute, undated) to the Societies. Some of the photographic material that Shortt presented correlates with the papers that he also presented at their meetings – the evidence of which can be found in the album.

Figure 4. Photographs supplementing Dr John Shortt's paper titled 'Description of a Living Microcephale', located on page 28 (top right) of the Anthropological Society album.

Three photographs supplementing Shortt's paper on a 'Description of a Living Microcephale' (Shortt, 1866) can be found on page 28 of the album, with the caption 'Microcephalic Idiot (Maharatha)[.] Presented by Dr. John Shortt. Madras' (see figure 4 above). Six photographs, three hand-drawn, watercoloured illustrations, and one other photograph supplementing Shortt's paper titled 'An Account of Some Rude Tribes, the Supposed Aborigines of Southern India' (Shortt, 1865) can be found on pages 2 to 4, 5, and 6 respectively. These are all captioned 'Aboriginal Tribes of Southern India. Presented by Dr. Shortt' (see figures 5 and 6 below).

One photograph supplementing Shortt's paper on 'An Account of a Wild Tribe Inhabiting Some Parts of Orissa and Known as "Juags" and "Bathuas" or "Leaf Wearers"' (Shortt, 1865) can be found on page 28 of the album, with the caption 'Leafwearer, India. Shortt' (figure 4, bottom right).

Figure 5. Photographs supplementing Shortt's paper titled 'An Account of Some Rude Tribes, the Supposed Aborigines of Southern India', located on page 2 (right) of the Anthropological Society album.

Figure 6. Coloured illustrations supplementing Shortt's paper titled 'An Account of Some Rude Tribes, the Supposed Aborigines of Southern India', located on page 5 (left) of the Anthropological Society album.

Finally, there are two photographs of the Rani, supplementing Shortt's paper on the 'Habits and Manners of Marvar Tribes of India' (Short, 1870) on pages 40 and 41 of the album. Figure 7 below shows the second photograph, captioned 'Daughter of the Ranee of Shevagunga, with a female relative in the centre', and 'Presented by Dr. Shortt'.

Shortt's acquisition of the Rani's photograph to present as evidence for the argument in his paper demonstrates how during the early years of anthropology many genres of photography were collected as data and used for scientific purposes. At the ASL, in particular, it was used to document racial and cultural types, affording anthropologists the possibility of systematically comparing racial diversity, using methods that followed the precision, taxonomic arrangement and comparative approach of the biological sciences.

Shortt presumably acquired the Rani's photograph with the same intentions as he acquired the photographs of the microcephale, 'the supposed aborigines of south India', and the 'leaf wearers' – that is, as data for racial classification of Indian 'types' (Edwards, 1990). Indeed, Shortt used the Rani's photograph to validate the argument he puts forward in his paper on the 'Habits and Manners of Marvar Tribes of India' (Shortt, 1870).

Figure 7. Photograph supplementing Shortt's paper titled 'Habits and Manners of Marvar Tribes of India', located on page 40 (right) of the Anthropological Society album.

This, therefore, would mean that the Rani's hand-painted photograph – a creative product – is caught up in the same intentions as other images from Shortt's collection included in the album. Furthermore, considering that the album is a synthetic object, the contents of which have inextricably linked meanings, and that Shortt's other images in the album were collected by him as data, the Rani's photograph too would have been consumed under this rubric. The individuality and importance of the Rani and her likeness were made redundant in this way, subsumed within the larger anthropological project of the late nineteenth century. However, to grasp the impact of this redundancy, we must first find out who this Rani was, and what creative practice her image exemplifies.

The portrait – A fragmented biography

The Rani's photograph in the album is captioned 'Ranee of Shevagunga'. Both the words 'Ranee' and 'Shevagunga' are a nineteenth-century anglicisation of the Hindi words for 'queen' and Sivagangai. Sivagangai was a zamindari estate in the Ramnad subdivision of the Madurai district in the Madras Presidency of British India. Established under both the Mughal and later British zamindari systems, this meant that all of Sivagangai's land rights were fixed in perpetuity without any occupancy rights for farmers, and that land revenue was collected from them by intermediaries known as zamindars. These were autonomous or semi-autonomous rulers of specific territories, who were locally known as Raja (male) or Rani (female).

Between the 1860s and 1870s, at which point Shortt was resident in Sivagangai, its Rani was Kathama Nachiar. Indeed, as Pamela G. Price (1979) notes, Shortt took an eyewitness account of her coronation in 1863 from Robert Fischer, the son of a British cotton merchant and landholder named George F. Fischer, who was valuable in supporting the Rani during her thirty-four-year struggle for succession to the throne. Indeed, Shortt acknowledges this himself towards the end of his paper on the 'Habits and Manners of Marvar Tribes of India' (Short, 1870), noting: 'I am ... indebted to R. Fischer, Esq., B.L., for much information on various points ... I have chiefly abridged these from a paper furnished by Mr. Fischer to one of the daily newspapers, a copy of which Mr. Fischer kindly placed at my disposal' (ibid: 215).

After her succession struggle, for which there exist several legal documents, and which Shortt also briefly mentions in his paper, Kathama ruled Sivagangai from 1863 to 1877. She certainly had one son: Price (1979) details his presence and participation throughout her coronation. However, the group portrait captioned 'Daughter of the Ranee of Shevagunga, with a female relative in the centre', located on page 40 of the Anthropological Society album, suggests that she may also have had a daughter. Price does not seem to have documented this, but in his paper Shortt notes: 'The Ranee is the mother of several children, three of whom are now alive – one boy and two girls' (Shortt, 1870). The female relative in the centre could indeed have been anyone from the Nachiar royal family; further archival research in Tamil Nadu, India, could elucidate this point.

Like her predecessors, Kathama was a great patron of the arts and literature, and supported the development of many temples (Kalaiselvi, 2018). As an expression of this patronage she may have commissioned her likeness from a local artisanal studio, which at the time may have been pursuing the Indian practice of painting photographs, which combined the existing tradition of Indian miniature painting with photographic image-making, newly introduced by the East India Company (Dewan, 2012).

According to Rahaab Allana, visual historian and curator of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, the Indian nobility frequently commissioned painted photographs. This suggests the existence of a courtly culture and the nobility's patronage of the emerging arts. Indeed, in their extensive study on painted photographs, both Allana (2008) and Deepali Dewan (2012) show that the nobility were the most common subjects of the practitioners of painted photography. This strongly suggests that Kathama's photograph too was produced in this way. How, then, did it come into Shortt's possession?

Figures 8 and 9. Painted portraits of Rani Bhuvneshwari Kuer of Tikari Raj (left) and of a young Indian prince (right).

In addition to acknowledging Robert Fischer for his help in composing his paper on the 'Habits and Manners of Marvar Tribes of India' (Short, 1870), Shortt also expresses: 'To Miss Fischer I am likewise indebted for the photographs which I have the pleasure to submit with this paper' (ibid: 215). As was noted earlier, the Fischer family had close relations with Kathama and her family. Robert's father, George Fischer, had helped Kathama win her thirty-four-year struggle for succession to the throne. As Price (1979) and Shortt (1870) reveal, the Fischer family were actively involved in Kathama's coronation, and George Fischer even 'placed the crown on her head while attending Brahmins invoked eternal blessings for the Rani and her lineage' (Price, 1979: 277).

It is not unsurprising that due to this intimate relationship between Kathama and the Fischers, the latter would have had a photograph of her and her family in their possession. This, as Shortt gratefully expresses, was then given to him by 'Mrs. Fischer' to aid his research. However, what still remains unclear is how did Shortt make his acquaintance with the Fischer family? Which of the two Mrs Fischers – that is, the wives of Robert and George – gave Kathama's and her daughter's photographs to Shortt? Could this have been another woman from the Fischer family? And how did Kathama's photograph originally come into 'Mrs. Fischer's' possession?

Concluding remarks

I am left with a few unanswered questions. However, this article nonetheless attempts to put together parts of the biography of this portrait of Kathama, Rani of Sivagangai, a photograph that first caught my attention during a class led by Christopher Morton at the Pitt Rivers Museum, in which he showed us the Anthropological Society album.

In Shortt's possession, Kathama's photograph became scientific data, used in support of his paper presented to the ASL on the 'Habits and Manners of Marvar Tribes of India'. Kathama's photograph became part of a larger imperial and anthropological project of collating information about societies from across the world via agents like Shortt. Eventually, when it was stuck on a page and bound with other similar photographs, Kathama's photograph became associated with the ideas that the album aimed to convey – the most dominant being the racialised colonial search for data on physical anthropology to provide evidence for theories then in fashion about European racial superiority.

This racialised interpretation is confirmed when one considers that the album was first housed in the Department of Human Anatomy in Oxford's University Museum, then transferred to the Pitt Rivers Museum with other photographic material in 1945 by the widow of anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Thomson. Now that the album is part of an ethnographic museum, perhaps it is worth asking: what frames of interpretation are brought to bear upon Kathama's photograph as a result, and within what regime of value does it hold today?

Aayushi Gupta

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Phil.)

9 December 2021

Bibliography

Alkazi, E., Allana, R. and Kumar, P. (2008), Painted Photographs: Coloured Portraiture in India. Ocean Township, N.J.: Grantha Corporation.

Dewan, D. (2012). Embellished Reality: Indian Painted Photographs: Towards a Transcultural History of Photography. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press.

Edwards, E. (1990). Photographic 'Types': The Pursuit of Method. Visual Anthropology, 3 (2–3), pp. 235–258.

Kalaiselvi, L. (2018). Society, Religion and Culture in the Colonial Era: Contributions of the Rajahs of Sivaganga. International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research, 3 (11), pp. 6141–6148.

Price, P. G. (1979). Resources and Rule in Zamindari South India, 1802–1903: Sivagangai and Ramnad as Kingdoms Under the Raj. University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Shortt, J. (1865). An Account of Some Rude Tribes, the Supposed Aborigines of Southern India. Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, 3, pp. 373–394.

(Available online at https://doi.org/10.2307/3014173.)

Shortt, J. (1865). An Account of a Wild Tribe Inhabiting Some Parts of Orissa and Known as 'Juags' and 'Bathuas', or 'Leaf Wearers'. Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 3, pp. cxxxiv–cxli.

(Available online at https://doi.org/10.2307/3025316.)

Shortt, J. (1866). [Comments on] Description of a Living Microcephale. Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 4, pp. clxxxi–clxxxii.

(Available online at https://doi.org/10.2307/3025398.)

Shortt, J. (1870). Description of Crania from India. Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 8, p. xvii.

(Available online at https://doi.org/10.2307/3025168.)

Shortt, J. (1870). Habits and Manners of Marvar Tribes of India. Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London, 3, pp. 2012–15.

'The United States of America Through the Stereoscope': A view of national identity for the armchair tourist

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 16:17:00 +0000

'Pennsylvania Avenue from the Treasury, S.E. to the United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Washington, D.C., United States of America. Circa 1903.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.4)

In this blog article, undergraduate student and History of Art department intern Zoë Alexander discusses a set of photographic stereo cards in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections. Analysing them for content and also narrative, as well as for what they say about American identity at the commencement of the twentieth century, Zoë writes:

Among its photograph collections the Pitt Rivers Museum holds a near complete set of stereographs that were published by Underwood and Underwood, around 1904, as The United States of America Through the Stereoscope. Each stereograph is made up of a rectangle of grey card on which two photographic prints, showing the same view of a site in the USA, but taken from slightly different angles, are pasted side by side. When they are viewed through a stereoscope, the illusion of a single three-dimensional image is created. A short informative text, printed on the reverse of each card, explains the significance of the site depicted.

This blog article will discuss how this partnership of stereograph and text – photographic technology and modern tourism – worked together to sell a particular vision of American national identity. The article will begin with a general discussion of Underwood and Underwood's innovative tours and marketing strategy, before considering the particular appeal of The United States of America Through the Stereoscope to the predominantly American, middle-class consumer. The second half of the article will look in more depth at individual stereographs, often examples of recurring representational themes within the set, in order to discuss their contribution to the overall representation of the USA tour.

The Underwood tour and the Underwood tourist

When Underwood and Underwood began producing stereoscopic tours in 1897, they were an innovative application for stereography. Sets of stereographs, depicting the sites of various travel destinations around the world, were being sold soon after stereography became widely available in the 1850s. However, Underwood and Underwood were the first to try and replicate the experiential dimension of travel through the pairing of stereography with informative text, written in the second person, mimicking the expression of a tour guide, to create a sense that the viewer has been transported to the location depicted. This invention, which emphasised the medium's experiential and educational advantages, helped to maintain interest in stereography, a medium which had fallen in and out of fashion throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, in the face of competing visual technologies, such as early silent film and amateur photography.

Underwood and Underwood's tours were specifically designed to appeal to an aspirational middle-class consumer, each set costing roughly the same as a week's wage for the working-class American. The advertising, the guidebook, and the cards themselves tend to assume an audience of male businessmen and professionals, promising that the tour makes it 'easily possible for any man, however closely he may be tied to work in some particular place, to learn from his own observation the large typical facts of this country'. However, both women and children are shown visiting the sites depicted, promoting tourism as an appropriate activity for all the family. Furthermore, coloured pencil scribbles on some of the cards in the Pitt Rivers Museum's set provide evidence of likely contact with a mischievous child at some point in their history! Underwood and Underwood's advertising emphasised the science behind stereography's replication of human eyesight, its psychological effects, and used the endorsement of university professors. No mere parlour entertainment, the stereoscopic tour promoted self-improvement and was a sign of the host's cultural capital.

The claim to have distilled 'the large and typical facts of this country' – all that it is important to know about the USA – neatly into a pack of one hundred stereographs gave The United States of America Through the Stereoscope appeal to its primarily American audience. In 1904, the frontier period of western settlement remained in living memory and non-Native occupation of Native American lands was ongoing, aided by the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887. Some of the locations included in the tour had only recently been subsumed into American territory. A comprehensible vision of this new, vast, unknowable country served the additional purpose of affirming the viewer's own sense of American citizenship and national pride. Susan Scheckel's conception of the 'citizen-tourist', in her discussion of guidebooks to the Capitol building in Washington, DC, produced between 1830 and 1865, is useful. She argues that the guidebooks participated in the ongoing project of national formation, teaching the tourist how to position himself as a citizen in relation to the nation and history represented by the monument, posited as the object of the tourist's gaze of veneration: 'by virtue of the ability to recognize and interpret a variety of objects, representations, or events as historical markers, the citizen-tourist lays claim to and inscribes himself within the national history thus marked, thereby affirming his own authenticity as a citizen'.

However, unlike the mid-nineteenth-century guidebooks discussed by Scheckel, the stereograph tour no longer required the citizen-tourist to actually visit sites of national importance. Key to the premise of the stereographic tour was the claim that '[t]he mechanical construction of the stereoscope in itself helps one to see everything in full size with effect of real presence on the spot.' The argument that the viewer could be psychologically transported to the spaces depicted implied that they could be seen, known, and occupied without leaving the comfort of one's armchair, instilling a sense of belonging and ownership of these, often distant, American landscapes. The tourist's sense of emplacement within the landscapes depicted is enhanced by the annotated maps included in the guidebook and the way the stereographs have been numbered to mimic a logical journey around the USA and through its cities.

Without the spontaneity and serendipity that comes from the real experience of travel, The Unites States Through the Stereoscope mass produces the touristic experience so that everyone who buys a set sees the same sites from the exact same viewpoint. As the next section of this blog article will explore, the types of subjects represented, and the positioning of the viewer through framing, in the different individual stereographs included in the tour, inform the view of the USA presented overall.

Representing American national identity

The tour refers to many famous or historic Americans who are presented as national heroes, as integral as the USA's landscapes and cities to the representation of its national identity. Not simply being promoted as role models, these men are transformed into the objects of the citizen-tourist's reverent gaze. American President George Washington is by far the figure most referenced in the tour. He is uncritically honoured as a national hero. The reverse of the fourteenth stereograph [2012.32.14] characterises his role leading colonisation of indigenous lands that became part of the USA positively as a 'subject dear to his heart – the opening up of the vast, unknown west', without mentioning the violent consequences for Native American people who already lived there. The stereograph, captioned 'Home of Washington, preserved in memory of the Republic's founder, Mount Vernon, Va.', shows Washington's family estate in Virginia which was built and maintained by slaves. To avoid tainting his image, Washington's participation in slavery is also overlooked on the card, printed almost forty years after slavery was finally abolished in the USA. The mansion is viewed at an angle and distance which do not encourage appreciation of its architectural details (see below). Instead, the figures of women and children, smartly dressed in white, who are seen on the lawn in the foreground, detract attention from the building. Rather than the house itself, it is the knowledge that this is the place where Washington once lived, perhaps even the exact spot where he might once have stood, that makes the stereograph of interest to the tour. It is almost as if, by being transported there stereographically, the viewer can hope to be touched by some kind of aura left there by the first president's past presence.

'Home of [President George] Washington, preserved in memory of the Republic's founder, Mount Vernon, Va.' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Mount Vernon, Virginia, United States of America. Circa 1903.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.14)

Just like those associated with national heroes, sites associated with historic events, deemed significant to the formation of the nation portrayed in The United States of America Through the Stereoscope, are included as objects of touristic veneration. The history represented in the tour is a nationalistic celebration of American triumphs, focusing on victories such as independence from the British, whilst avoiding episodes of history that might make the country appear politically, militarily or morally weak. The stereograph below [2012.32.79], captioned 'Wall charged by Pickett, S. to Round Top – The War's "High Water Mark" clump of trees, Gettysburg', relates to the American Civil War (1861–1865), a defining conflict in American history which, in 1904, remained in living memory. The picturesque view of the hill behind a grassy landscape with trees and a carriage trundling through is not disturbed by the presence of the unmanned guns, lined up in the centre of the image, which seem inert as the stone monument behind them. The scene seems to emphasise the peacefulness of a space that was once the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, which resulted in more casualties than any other battle in the Civil War. Distancing the USA of today from this incredibly deadly and divisive conflict, in which the status of slavery was a central issue, was essential for the tours' representation of a unified, strong nation. The detailed description of the battle on the reverse of the card manages to emphasise solidarity among Americans in their courageous self-sacrifice for their beliefs, over the division between the Union and the Confederate armies: 'It lasted until this very ground that you see now as a grassy lawn was covered with the bodies of dead and dying men – the Blue and the Grey together. There were on both sides the most splendid courage – dogged determination, and magnificent heroism of self-sacrifice. At the end of the first day fifty thousand of America's sons had given their lives in the struggle at Gettysburg.'

'Wall charged by Pickett, S. to Round Top – the War's "High Water Mark" clump of trees, Gettysburg' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America. Circa 1903.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.79)

The image below [2012.32.46] of a lone figure, posed high on a rocky precipice (Glacier Point in Yosemite, California), surveying a stunning landscape that would be at home in a Bierstadt painting, is an example of a recurring compositional type in The United States of America Through the Stereoscope. The composition is well suited to the stereographic medium. When viewed through a stereoscope, the ledge, on which the figure stands, appears suspended over thin air, whilst the landscape dramatically recedes into the distance. However, another reason for including the figure, who can be male or female but is always nameless, could be as a substitute for the viewer, who can imagine how it would feel to stand in their place. The image of the figure presiding over the landscape suggests ownership of the land – a feeling the citizen-tourist viewer is encouraged to share in. Her powerful stance and the precariousness of her position – '[n]early a mile down straight and only a step', according to the caption – make her seem courageous and triumphant. Perhaps the tourist is being encouraged to relate to the settlers who led the colonisation of these lands and were often romantically portrayed as heroes in the popular mass media. The relentlessness of the occupation of this land is emphasised on the reverse of this stereograph which describes how '[i]t was only in 1851 that white men caught their first glimpse of this marvellous gorge. They were a determined little band of settlers on the trail of a troop of Indian marauders whom they had tracked to hiding places in the depths of this enormous cleft of the earth...' It seems that the tour, itself an example of popular, mass-produced media, also entertained its consumers with the sensationalised legend of cowboy and Indian.

'Nearly a mile straight down and only a step – from Glacier Point, (N.W.) Yosemite, Cal.' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Yosemite, California, United States of America. Circa 1902.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.46)

As well as beauty spots and historic sites, the tour surveys the different industries and economic potential of different parts of the USA. The viewer is taken to see copper mines in Arizona [2012.32.29], logging rafts in Oregon [2012.32.52], salmon fishing in Washington [2012.32.53], the latest combine harvester sweeping through a wheat field [2012.32.54], a meat packing factory in Chicago [2012.32.70, below], and oil fields in Pennsylvania [2012.32.75] to name a few. The environmental impact of these industries, including to the American landscapes celebrated by the tour, are not considered in the accompanying text. Instead, the impressive statistics detailing the scale of production or yearly contribution to the USA's economy are reported. The suggestion of abundance is carried through into the stereographs, which employ the three-dimensional quality to great effect, with images of production lines or shipping yards that seem to go on forever. The image below of the meat factory is a particularly striking example. These cards proclaim the country's economic power as central to its national identity.

'A half-mile of pork – Armour's great packing-house, Chicago, Ill.' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. Circa 1899.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.70)

The tour's focus on the technical detail of industry and markets suggests this type of card serves a further purpose than satisfying the tourist's curiosity. The stereograph below [2012.32.76], captioned 'Steel Works, Homestead, Pa. – famous source of dirt and dollars', does not show your typical picturesque tourist attraction. The industrial landscape is cluttered with buildings, containers, railway, pylons, and huge chimneys which stain the sky with smoke. However, through the stereoscope the tourist is able to visit without being bothered by the smell and the smoke. The reverse of the card exclaims: 'It is not lovely to look at, but it is a great sight – what all these chimneys imply!' before recounting the rags to riches story of Andrew Carnegie, the original owner of this factory, who went from child factory worker on $1.20 a week to millionaire steel magnate. The detailed tour of American industries, within the tour of America, might be seen as promoting them as opportunities for investment, through which the citizen-tourist might serve their country through contributing to its economy and try their luck at becoming the next Carnegie in the process.

'Steel Works, Homestead, Pa. – famous source of dirt and dollars' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Homestead, Pennsylvania, United States of America. Circa 1903.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.76)

According to the tour, the Homestead works produced steel 'chiefly for railway tracks, for bridge construction, and for armoured battleships', and the material was essential for much more of the infrastructure associated with modern life. 'Of course, the possibility of this tower-like "flatiron" depended on the very deep-built foundations and on the use of a steel frame or skeleton, securing great strength with comparatively light-weight', explains the blurb of the card depicting 'The famous Flatiron Building – most remarkable commercial building in the world, New York.' This unusual building which, in 1904, towered above all those nearby, contributed to the image of the USA as a nation at the forefront of modernisation which the citizen-tourist could feel proud to be a part of.

'The famous Flatiron Building – most remarkable commercial building in the world, New York' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. New York City, New York, United States of America. Circa 1904.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.98)

The representation of Native Americans within The United States of America Through the Stereoscope was used to create a juxtaposition that amplified the modernity of the USA, the settler state. The lower part of the stereograph below [2012.32.31] shows a rugged canyon with two cloaked figures, one holding a bow and arrow, who look towards a railway bridge, slicing the picture in two, with a train halfway across it. The sense of the train's movement, conveyed by the trail of steam, is presented in visual hierarchy with the figures who, the caption suggests, have been stopped in their tracks at the sight of the train. The caption 'A wonder to the primitive inhabitants – Santa Fe train crossing Cañon Diablo, Arizona', is patronising and implies complete disconnection of the Navajo people depicted at all. The card deals in the stereotype of Native Americans as primitive peoples, stuck in a traditional past. In all five representations of Native Americans within the set, the figures are photographed at a distance or with their faces obscured, so features are hard to make out and individuals are anonymised. The tour promises to bring viewers 'face to face with descendants of the original owners of American soil' but treats Native American people and cultures as curiosities for the tourist's gaze.

'A wonder to the primitive inhabitants – Santa Fe train crossing Cañon Diablo, Arizona' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Canyon Diablo, Arizona, United States of America. Circa 1903.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.31)

However, one stereograph [2012.32.33, below], captioned 'South to picturesque village of Wolpi, first mesa. Hopi Indian Reservation, Arizona' challenges the way Native Americans are represented in the rest of the tour. It shows a group of Hopis, in front of the historic Hopi architecture of Walpi village. They wear commercially manufactured shirts and trousers rather than traditional garments. The reverse of the card complains '[t]hese men lose something of their natural picturesqueness by reason of those commonplace clothes from the nearest trading-post, but they are the descendants of the original Americans; their civilisation was hoary with age when the very first Spanish explorers, pushing up here from Mexico made acquaintance with it.' Our attention is unintentionally directed towards the contrived nature of the portrayal of Native Americans through the tour. Rather than appearing cut off from modernity, the clothing is a sign of how the figures have adapted traditions to a modern way of living. There is something defiant about their appearance in everyday clothes rather than those that conform to the perception of Native Americans the tour is trying to create. This defiance is also reflected in the pose of the Hopi man who stands apart from the group near the edge of the cliff in a wide stance, with hands on his hips, staring into the camera. His pose is reminiscent of the recurring images of white Americans posed on rocky ledges over dramatic landscapes that proclaimed a sense of ownership and power. His strong presence seems to be saying, this is my land, these are my traditions, and they are here to stay.

'South to picturesque village of Wolpi, first mesa. Hopi Indian Reservation, Arizona' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Wolpi, Arizona, United States of America. Circa 1903.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.33)

Concluding remarks

The United States of America Through the Stereoscope claimed to offer a comprehensive view of the USA through the medium of the stereoscopic tour that would affirm its predominantly American consumers' sense of their own national identity. From their armchairs, the tour connected citizen-tourists to famous American citizens and historic events, stunning landscapes and investment opportunities, using the immersive illusion of the stereoscope. The tour's rhetoric is consistently patriotic, proclaiming the USA as a great modern power, encouraging the citizen-tourist to both serve and share in its rewards. However, not everyone who viewed the tour was an American citizen, with Underwood and Underwood shipping their products across the world. Indeed, the Pitt Rivers Museum's copy of the USA tour may have been purchased and used in the UK before it came into the Museum's collections. For viewers outside of the USA the tour acted almost like an advertisement, its presentation of an aspirational vision of America.

'Castle Garden, the Aquarium and Liberty Status (S.W.) from Washington Bldg.' (printed caption).
Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. New York City, New York, United States of America. Circa 1902.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2012.32.99)

The last card of the tour [2012.32.99, above] is a view out towards Ellis Island where, it explains, thousands of immigrants pass through. It is interesting that at a time when immigration was a contentious issue (see Louise Dalrymple, 'The High Tide of Immigration – A National Menace', Judge, 22 August 1903), the tour chooses to present immigration in a positive light, stressing how they 'have come from all parts of the world to make new homes and fortunes and to help make the country'. It seems as if the tour is encouraging foreign viewers to come, to invest, and to be part of the country too.

Zoë Alexander

University of Oxford undergraduate (History of Art, reading for B.A.)

13 September 2021

Bibliography

William C. Darrah, The World of Stereographs (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: William C. Darrah, 1977).

Robert DeLeskie, 'The Underwood Stereograph Travel System: A Historical and Cultural Analysis' (M.A. thesis, Concordia University, 2000).

Susan Scheckel, The Insistence of the Indian: Race and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).

Underwood and Underwood, The United States of America Through the Stereoscope: One Hundred Outlooks from Successive Standpoints in Different Parts of the World's Greatest Republic (New York: Underwood and Underwood, 1904).

Underwood and Underwood, The United States of America Through the Stereoscope: One Hundred Outlooks from Successive Standpoints in Different Parts of the World's Greatest Republic (New York: Underwood and Underwood, 1911).

Nubian house decoration: Marian Wenzel's sketch-books from Wadhi Halfa

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 16:07:00 +0000

Ink sketch by Marian Wenzel of a Nubian house interior in the north Sudanese village of Kosha, one of numerous villages destroyed by the creation of Lake Nasser (Lake Nubia) as a consequence of the Egyptian government's Aswan Dam hydroelectric scheme of the 1960s to create cheap electricity.

Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Wenzel Papers, Box 3, Item 5, p. 75.

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Rosie Croysdale discusses the Pitt Rivers Museum's Wenzel Papers, which comprise an exhaustive documentation of Nubian houses and their decorative schemes compiled shortly before the houses' destruction by flooding in the mid-1960s. Considering their value as a record of lost cultural artefacts, Rosie writes:

This July, I researched a collection of sketch-books compiled by American art historian Marian Wenzel. They were amassed during her March 1964 visit to Wadhi Halfa, in Sudan, where she conducted an investigation into the decoration of Nubian houses, a project supported by the University of Khartoum Research Unit. Her visit took place just months before devastating floods submerged approximately twelve villages. Today, Wenzel's painterly sketch-book illustrations of Nubian house decoration in fact preserve the precious social and material evidence of a concentrated region that once sustained over seven thousand years of Nubian culture.

Pages from one of Marian Wenzel's sketch-books. The page on the left shows a house in the village of Sarras, recorded as being owned by 'Ahmed Gandool, who also owns the rest house'. The page on the right shows a mosque in the same village built in 1922 by Osman Sherif Abdullah, with the minaret 'built by another person called Abdullah Sherif Abdullah'; a note records of the exterior decoration that '[t]he color was brought from the mountain'.

Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Wenzel Papers, Box 2, Item 3, pp. 168 (left) and 255 (right).

The three sketch-books and further unbound material donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum by Wenzel in July 1978 were made in advance of her will. In 1964, the villages she surveyed were submerged under water due to the unprecedented flooding of Lake Nasser (known to the Sudanese as 'Lake Nubia') by the Aswan High Dam. The flooding created one of the world's largest man-made reservoirs in the world, stretching between southern Egypt and northern Sudan. This flooding forced Nubian residents to flee over six hundred kilometres to designated settlements, a movement which has been described as the intentional deprivation of Nubian identity and agency. Now, over fifty years since the floods, the victims of this traumatic event are still yet to regain control over their expression of Nubian culture and what remains of the endangered Nubian language. Furthermore, with 83% of the lake's larger body residing in Egyptian territory the lake was, and continues to be, a source of contention between Egypt and Sudan for the access and energy it provides to the respective regions. The history of Lake Nasser – its flooding and construction – reveal past and ongoing political negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia surrounding agricultural and energy-related issues controlled by the monopoly on water.

Drawing in ink by Marian Wenzel of a house interior decorated by Kasbana Hassan Tufuli: 'In one of the rooms of this house there are hanging baskets. The black hanging ropes are not made here but are brought from Dongola, where they are made by women.'

Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Wenzel Papers, Box 2, Item 3, p. 200.

In her 1972 book entitled House Decoration in Nubia, Wenzel published her findings from the trip stating that 'the [house] decorations were sculpted in mud-relief or painted on mud walls which dissolved on becoming damp. Unlike relief sculpture in stone, they cannot be retrieved if the waters recede and the best of them are lost for ever'. Her illustrations, made in both watercolour paint and pen, capture her interpretation of the interiors and exteriors of Nubian houses. She even included depictions of local people in her paintings, which bring the illustrations to life and contextualise them within the everyday.

Two pages of watercolour sketches by Marian Wenzel. The page on the left shows a house entrance in the village of Sarras, with mention that the builder was a man named Daoud Suleiman. A note further records that the property's locks were made by Youssef Mohd Ali: 'He is now 55 years [old], and was a farmer before he became a carpenter. He learned the trade from his father and is not passing it on to his sons, who are working at Atbara.' The page on the right shows decorative elements of another house in Sarras: 'In this village', Wenzel has commented, 'the men could not control the children.'

Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Wenzel Papers, Box 2, Item 3, pp. 178 (left) and 250 (right).

For this reason, Wenzel's sketch-books are a valuable research tool because they contribute to a significant body of archaeological research currently seeking to unearth and preserve Nubian artefacts and antiquities damaged by the flooding events. The flooded region near Wadi Halfa has been described as the original heart of Nubian civilisation and the birthplace of the ancient Kingdom of Kush.

Among its object collections, the Pitt Rivers Museum has two wooden locks (ḍabba) which were donated separately by Wenzel (1978.10.1, 1978.10.2). Correspondence reveals that they were retrieved from Faras West and Serra West with consent from the government to remove any locks abandoned in vacant villages where the inhabitants had already fled to Khasm el Girba near the Ethiopian border. This permission was revoked shortly afterwards when the government sold the locks and doors of vacated houses to a contractor, who sold them on to Nubians south of the flood-threatened area in order to be reused. These two donated locks, therefore, were taken just before the rule changes. Unfortunately, Wenzel was unable to secure information detailing the maker of the locks, and little documentation exists to identify the house they belonged to.

Two pages of ink sketches and notes by Marian Wenzel. The page on the left shows a traditional Nubian lock, or 'ḍabba', with the lockmaker identified as Ahmed Saleh Fadl: 'The lock cost 30 piastres. It is a special lock for this house.' The page on the right shows 'hanging baskets in [a] room which serves as [the] kitchen'.

Source: Pitt Rivers Museum Manuscript Collections, Wenzel Papers, Box 2, Item 3, pp. 254 (left) and 256 (right).

One of the most striking aspects of Wenzel's sketch-books is her dedication to maintaining a comprehensive, handwritten documentation about the personhood, names and work of the people she met. The most common motif explored by Wenzel in her sketch-books is the ḍabba, the Nubian door lock. Paintings and sketches detailing the maker and whereabouts of the locks have been kept throughout her sketch-books. Wenzel found the locks interesting both as a unique example of intricate technological design and as artworks in their own right, embellished with highly skilled carving identifying the craftsperson. A ḍabba is made from three parts: the shrû (bolt), the terai (key), and the central compartment also called ḍabba. Within the central compartment are the inner cogs and mechanisms which secure the locking function, manipulated by the inserted shrû. The ḍabba is typically made of tamarisk wood (although the material is always decided by the owner of the house, metal being a more expensive material). Wenzel wrote extensively about Abdulla Kheir el-Sid, a lockmaker from a village called Ashkeit whose designs were inspired by gold jewellery, as mirrored in the elegant finish of his carving upon an 'otherwise plain' edifice. Indeed, Wenzel discovered that each individual lock she encountered was slightly different and uniquely manufactured but its maker. A lockmaker would sign his design on the surface of a commissioned ḍabba, paying careful attention to the exact size and protrusion of the key's teeth to ensure the key opened the ḍabba, like substrate to enzyme.

Rosie Croysdale

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Sc.)

9 August 2021

Bibliography

Haidy Geismar, 'Drawing It Out', Visual Anthropology Review, 30 (2014), pp. 97–113.

W. Merrill, 'The Wooden Locks of the Halfa Region', Sudan Notes and Records, 45 (1964), pp. 29–34.

Marian Wenzel, House Decoration in Nubia (London: Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd., 1972).

A life in colour: Cataloguing the Jenny Balfour-Paul collection of photographs

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 11:28:00 +0000

In this blog article, former Multaka Project Assistant Joanna Cole writes about her work digitising and cataloguing the Jenny Balfour-Paul collection of photographs. Joanna was Multaka Project Assistant until November 2020. She now works on the Pitt Rivers Museum's 'Talking Threads' textile documentation and community engagement project:

Between June and December 2020, I digitised, researched and catalogued a collection of around 2,300 colour slides (35 mm) donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum by writer, artist, lecturer and indigo expert Jenny Balfour-Paul. The photographs, taken by Jenny and her late husband Glencairn Balfour Paul, span the years between 1962 and 1997, and were taken across the Middle East and North and West Africa. These photographs complement around three hundred objects also donated by Jenny Balfour-Paul, which are often referred to as the 'Textiles from the Arab World' collection.

View across a busy market in Sana'a, with distinctive multi-storey houses in the background.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sana'a, Yemen. 1982.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.626)

This post was funded as part of Multaka-Oxford, a joint project at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the History of Science Museum which aims to bring community engagement and the inclusion of different perspectives into the heart of museum practice, using museum collections as a catalyst.

View from Sabil-Kuttab of Kathuda, looking down al-Muizz street in Old Cairo. The domes and minarets of the Qalawun complex can be seen to the right.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Cairo, Egypt. 1989.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1273)

The photographs themselves tell a range of stories about the people, culture and landscapes depicted, as well as forming a narrative of the Balfour-Paul's lives following Glencairn's diplomatic career and later Jenny's pursuit of the indigo trail. Beautiful landscapes and stunning architecture abound, from the Crusader castles of north-west Syria to the colourful tanneries of Fez, and the breathtaking high-rise cities of Yemen to the ancient Bandiagara Escarpment of Mali.

Animal hides are dyed red at a tannery in Fez. Men sit within the large stone vats, immersing the hides in the dye solution.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Fez, Morocco. 1977.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.304)

The earliest photographs in the collection, mostly taken by Glencairn, are full of such impressive sights and scenery. Views of mosques, palaces and old medinas rub shoulders with famous archaeological sites such as Palmyra in Syria and Petra in Jordan.

A young shepherd and his flock in front of the Monumental Arch at Palmyra. In the distance is Palmyra castle, high on a hilltop.
Photograph by Glencairn Balfour Paul. Palmyra, Syria. 1963.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.147)

Tourism remains an important theme throughout the collection. However, from the mid-1970s onwards there is a marked shift towards people, manufacturing and industry, illustrating Jenny's developing interest in individuals and processes. There are detailed series of photographs documenting ceramic and textile production as well as snapshots of village and city life.

A camel-powered sesame oil press in a courtyard in Beihan.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Beihan, Yemen. 1989.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.859)

It was their first trip to Yemen in the early 1980s that really sparked Jenny's interest in indigo, leading her to pursue this research across the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa and resulting in her first publication Indigo in the Arab World and later Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans (see bibliography below). The photographs from this initial research, and from her subsequent studies in West Africa, form a significant part of this collection.

The hand of indigo dyer Haj 'Amer Muhammad 'Eissa holds light blue, dark blue and undyed yarns.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sayada, Tunisia. 1995.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1885)

Vast series of photographs from Yemen, Oman, Tunisia, Senegal and Mali detail the production of indigo, from the growing of the crops to the dyeing of yarns and textiles – a notoriously labour-intensive process which was gradually being replaced by the use of synthetic indigo or other blue dyes. These images are not only a useful resource for the study of a vanishing industry, but also show Jenny's personal appreciation for the individuals, the farmers, dyers and makers, most of whom are named in her extensive research notes.

Indigo manufacturer Abdullah Nasi Shu'ban making indigo dye in his workshop. He uses a long-handled midrab to whisk a solution of indigo leaves soaked in water.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Beihan, Yemen. 1989.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.995)

Another theme that is impossible to ignore is that of nostalgia and tragedy. In recent years, the destruction and devastation in Syria and the desperate humanitarian crisis in Yemen have been witnessed by the world in horror. It goes without saying that these two countries cannot be defined by modern atrocities; both have long and complex histories and strong cultural identities which are celebrated in the Balfour-Paul's photographic work. (Together Syria and Yemen represent nearly half of the collection.) These photographs can serve as a reminder of the past and represent hope for the future.

Hanks of bleached silk thread hang in a workshop courtyard prior to dyeing.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Aleppo, Syria. 1985.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1915)

When I started on the project, in the middle of 2020, most of the photographic slides had already been scanned and numbered, meaning I was able to work from home using the digital images and a basic database. The work involved creating a new record for each photograph, writing a description, and filling in fields such as photographer, date, geographical location, and named person. This information mostly came from handwritten notes on the slide mounts, which had also been photographed for me to transcribe from home.

Blankets, rugs and waistcoats in Fulani designs for sale at a stall in Mopti.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Mopti, Mali. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1811)

Researching this diverse and fascinating collection has been a tonic during lockdown. Through reading Glencairn's memoir Bagpipes in Babylon: A Lifetime in the Arab World and Beyond and Jenny's various publications on indigo, I truly felt transported to the places they have travelled to and the people they had met. I particularly enjoyed matching anecdotes from Bagpipes in Babylon to related photographs and providing context to hundreds of others through linking them up with Jenny's writing, in a way that I hope will be useful for future researchers.

Jenny Balfour-Paul with Amazigh ceramic artist Juma bint Mohammed, the last in a series of photographs showing Juma at work. The teapot and the tortoise are in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections.
Photograph by Glencairn Balfour Paul. Tunisia. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.486)

Another vital resource for understanding the photographs has been the collection of objects and textiles which Jenny also donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum. Where she spent time photographing a dyer or maker's process, there are often accompanying objects to be found in the collection. For example, the teapot and tortoise made by Juma bint Mohammed [2018.37.226, 2018.37.230], tied and stitched white cloths from Mbamba's workshop in Gambia [2018.37.182, 2018.37.183], and a wooden indigo beater from Zabid [2018.37.102], are all associated with particular series of photographs.

Mbamba, a Gambian dyer, finishes bunching and tying a white cloth before dyeing with synthetic blue dye. When finished, the cloth will have a complex resist-dyed design.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sukuta, Gambia. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1478)

Many of these links are explored in the online exhibition 'Weaving Connections: Local Perspectives on Collections from the Middle East, North and West Africa'. This collaborative exhibition brings together photographs and objects from the Jenny Balfour-Paul collection alongside research, commentary, and personal reflections from a team of Multaka volunteers. Although my contract on this project was only short, I feel very grateful to have worked on such an exciting collection and am so pleased that many of the photographs will have a legacy in this inclusive and celebratory exhibition. A further selection of photographs can be seen below.

Joanna Cole

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

8 August 2021

Bibliography

Jenny Balfour-Paul, Indigo in the Arab World (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1997).

Jenny Balfour-Paul, Indigo (London: British Museum Press, 1998).

Glencairn Balfour Paul, Bagpipes in Babylon: A Lifetime in the Arab World and Beyond (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006).

Jenny Balfour-Paul, Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans (London: British Museum Press, 2011).

Jenny Balfour Paul, Deeper than Indigo: Tracing Thomas Machell, Forgotten Explorer (Surbiton, Surrey: Medina Publishing, 2015).

View from a tower at Krak des Chevaliers, a Crusader castle built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Photograph by Glencairn Balfour Paul. Krak des Chevaliers, Syria. 1963.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.137)

Al-Khazneh (Treasury) carved out of the rock face at Petra.
Photograph by Glencairn Balfour Paul. Petra, Jordan. 1964.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.562)

Blue and white houses built into the mountainside at Maaloula, one of the only places in the world where Aramaic is still spoken.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Maaloula, Syria. 1974.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.9)

Fisherman on the Sea of Galilee.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Tiberias, Israel. 1974.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.608)

A noria (waterwheel) on the Orontes river in Old Hama.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Hama, Syria. 1975.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.219)

Procession through a street in Sidi Bou Said to honour the Sufi saint for whom the town in named.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia. 1976.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.396)

A traditional multi-storey house in Sana'a, decorated with geometric plasterwork and arched windows of coloured glass.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sana'a, Yemen. 1982.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.637)

Yemeni men on a cliff near Al Kahera fort. Each man has his jambiya (curved dagger) prominently displayed in his belt.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Hajjah, Yemen. 1980s.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.759)

Women and children stand in a doorway in Haz. The main woman pictured spins wool fibres from a distaff onto a spindle.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Haz, Yemen. 1982.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.767)

A dyer hangs lengths of calico to dry after a first dipping in indigo, at Bayt Abud workshop. By 1989, Bayt Abud was the only dyeing establishment left in the town of Zabid, once a centre of the industry.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Zabid, Yemen. 1983.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.891)

Two men beat indigo-dyed cloth with heavy wooden mallets to make it stiff and shiny, at Bayt Hakami workshop.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Zabid, Yemen. 1983.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.936)

An indigo farmer bends to pick leaves in an indigo field at Bayt Khalfan.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Dahak, near Jabrin, Oman. 1985.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1081)

A number of obsolete indigo extraction pots (khabiya) lie overturned next to a dried-up water channel. Jenny Balfour-Paul notes that the indigo manufacturing industry was thriving in Firq until the late 1970s.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Firq, Oman. 1985.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1109)

Salim bin Rashid al-Sawwad, last indigo dyer of Ibri, stands in front of a newly dyed cloth.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Ibri, Oman. 1985.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1118)

Bedouin family next to its tent in the Sinai Peninsula.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sinai, Egypt. 1989.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1340)

View across the Draa river to the kasbah of Timiderte.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Draa valley, Morocco. 1990.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.235)

A man in a colourful wide-brimmed hat sells various metal objects in Agdz suq.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Agdz, Morocco. 1990.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.279)

Four women sit in the village of Iznaguene. Three are wearing a handira, the Moroccan striped shawl traditionally dyed with indigo.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Iznaguene, Morocco. 1990.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1866)

A woman winds red yarn, to be used for the borders of melia shawls, the traditional indigo-dyed garment worn by women of the region.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sayada, Tunisia. 1995.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1897)

Two young women pound kaka nuts for dye in Mbamba's workshop.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Sukuta, Gambia. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1485)

Brightly painted fishing boats, a common sight in Saint Louis.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Saint Louis, Senegal. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1501)

Aissa Kebbé, indigo dyer, carries a large lump of dried indigo through her dyeing compound.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Bakel, Senegal. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1561)

Stitch-resist-dyed indigo cloths hang to dry in the compound of Habibata Diakhité.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Bakel, Senegal. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1579)

A young woman paints a bogolan (mud cloth) with a red dye produced from boiling wild vines.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. San, Mali. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1654)

Two men weave cloths on narrow strip looms, operating the heddles with their feet.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Mandiakuy, Mali. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1673)

Ancient mud granaries built into the cliff of the Bandiagara escarpment at Teli.
Photograph by Jenny Balfour-Paul. Teli, Mali. 1997.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2018.137.1751)

Khadija Saye's Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 11:56:00 +0000

I first came across Khadija Saye's artwork when reading the publicity surrounding the opening of the Diaspora Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

The Pavilion was conceived as a challenge to the prevalence of national pavilions within the structure of an international biennale, and it showed works by nineteen artists whose practices complicated 'diaspora' a concept, whilst also showing its relevance as a lived reality for many people today.

Khadija Saye's contribution was a series of nine wet plate collodion tintype photographs exploring her fascination with the ‘migration of traditional Gambian spiritual practices’ that formed a part of her childhood experience growing up in London with Gambian parents. She titled it Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe.

Nak Bejjen by Khadija Saye, 2017. One of two works exhibited
by the artist in the Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017.

Another artist exhibiting in the Pavilion that year was Dave Lewis, who, in 1995, had made a series of photographs titled Anthropology and Photography, which featured himself posed in various collections, including the Pitt Rivers Museum (see below), exploring the 'classification and guardianship practices' that these collections imposed on other peoples. The Pitt Rivers acquired this piece from the artist also.

Pitt Rivers Museum, From the Anthropology and
Photography Series by Dave Lewis, 1995 [PRM 1998.96.1]

Like most people who first came across Saye's haunting and evocative tintypes, I was struck by the beauty of the historical photographic process that she had chosen to use, as well as the drama and seeming timelessness of the compositions themselves.

Tintypes are an early form of photograph, popular in the 1860s, created by exposing a negative image onto a metal surface that has been coated with emulsion with a dark background so as to appear as a positive image.

The photographic plate is coated with a wet collodion solution by pouring it and moving the plate slowly until the liquid has covered the entire surface. It is then left for a short time until it is ready to be placed in the camera. A long exposure time is necessary with this type of emulsion, typically a minute or so, and so the sitter needs to be kept very still to avoid blurring.

In the notes accompanying the display of her works in Venice, Saye evokes fascinating connections between the slow and considered photographic process she used, and spiritual experience:

"The series was created out of the artist’s personal need for spiritual grounding after experiencing trauma. This work is based on the search for what gives meaning to our lives and what we hold onto in times of despair and life changing challenges. We exist in the marriage of physical and spiritual remembrance. It is in these spaces that we identify with our physical and imagined bodies. Using herself as the subject, Saye felt it was necessary to physically explore how trauma is embodied in the black experience. The objects used in the images are sacred and come from different spiritual healers in Gambia through a means of exchange and prayer.
Whilst exploring the notions of Gambian rituals, the process of image making became a ritual in itself. The journey of making wet plate collodion tintypes is unique; no image can be replicated and the final outcome is beyond the creator’s control. Within this process, you surrender yourself to the unknown, similar to what is required by all spiritual higher powers: surrendering and sacrifice. Each tintype has its own unique story to tell, a metaphor for our individual human spiritual journey. The process of submerging the collodion covered plate into a tank of silver nitrate ignites memories of baptisms, the idea of purity and how we cleanse in order to be spiritually sound. The application of the collodion transcends the photographic process; it is a reflection, a physical manifestation of the artist’s subconscious relationship to traditional African spirituality.
The process involved with tintypes addresses the current disposable era where materials are rapidly produced and short lived. We forget to live through the moment, remaining in the silence, and working on our internal connections."

Tragically, shortly after enjoying the success of her work being included in the Venice exhibition, Khadija Saye was killed at the age of just 24 in the fire that consumed her home, Grenfell Tower, on 14 June 2017.

Andichurai by Khadija Saye, 2017

Following Khadija's death, her gallery produced a limited edition of silkscreen prints based on the original tintype series. A proportion of the sales income for these editions goes to an initiative founded in Khadija Saye's memory in 2018 by social historian and visual artist Nicola Green at IntoUniversity, called the Khadija Saye IntoArts Programme. The Programme introduces new arts-focused activities at IntoUniversity centres across the country, serving disadvantaged young people across 27 local community learning centres.

As curator of photography at the Pitt Rivers, Saye's Dwelling series strikes a chord not only with the themes of the historical anthropological collection, that includes many photographs of West African religious and ritual practice, but also with the range of contemporary art that the Museum has sought to engage with in recent years. In 2017 for instance, a series of photographic works by leading Australian artist Christian Thompson was installed on the Lower Gallery of the Museum. And in 2018, Tibetan artist Nyema Droma created a striking series of portraits of contemporary Tibetans living in exile for the Museum's main Court.

The Pitt Rivers Museum acquired an edition of Dwelling in 2020, with funding generously awarded by ACE/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum, with the intention of displaying them as soon as possible.

With the Upper Gallery display of photographs by John Wreford due to close, the opportunity arose in the summer of 2021 to exhibit Khadija Saye's fantastically evocative prints, and bring them into direct dialogue with the Pitt Rivers' historical anthropological displays for the visiting public.

Installation video of the exhibition in the

Upper Gallery of the Pitt Rivers Museum 2021

Christopher Morton

3 August 2021

'India Through the Stereoscope': An Underwood and Underwood collection

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 09:12:00 +0000

'Delights of summer in the Vale of Cashmere – music for a houseboat party on Jhelum River' (printed caption).

Photograph by James Ricalton; published by Underwood and Underwood. Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. Circa 1903.

In this blog article, graduate student and summer intern Laura Bergin discusses a set of stereo cards in the Underwood and Underwood 'Travel System' – a kind of visual encyclopaedia for the armchair traveller – analysing the photographs for what they say about photographer and publisher, as well as how they might be interpreted by the contemporary viewer. In the third of her articles on the subject of stereoscopic photography (first article available here, second article here), Laura writes:

Underwood and Underwood: A family business

The stereoscope experienced a resurgence in popularity during the late nineteenth century, encouraging American photographic companies to specialise in the production and distribution of the unique medium. One such company began in 1881 in Ottawa, Kansas, as brothers Elmer and Bert Underwood sold stereoscopes door to door. After achieving local success, the brother began to expand their company, known by this time as Underwood and Underwood, into Missouri and the greater Kansas area. Following further popularity in the Midwest, the company opened a supply house in Baltimore, Maryland, before subsequently moving production to New York City.

Portraits of Elmer Underwood (left) and Bert Underwood (right), founders of the photographic firm of Underwood & Underwood.

Source: http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2338& (accessed 28 August 2020)

A successful domestic stereoscopic distribution company, Underwood and Underwood began to expand into international markets. Opening supply houses in Ontario, Canada, and Liverpool, England, the company was shipping to most of Europe, Scandinavia, Central America, Asia and the South Pacific by 1890. After selling to various magazines and news agencies since its international expansion, the company opened its own news photo agency in 1904, where the Underwoods debuted their 'Underwood Travel System'. This unique format is one of the innovations that the company became known for, as the Travel System collections consisted of a set of stereo cards accompanied by maps and text detailing what the viewer was seeing.

View of the Underwood and Underwood ('Underwood & Underwood') stereoscope factory.

Photographer unknown. Westwood, New Jersey, United States of America. Circa 1901.

Source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/207939707780999724/ (accessed 28 August 2020)

These 'Travel System' sets became a hallmark of the company, as Underwood and Underwood produced popular collections such as 'Around the World Through the Stereoscope', 'Traveling in the Holy Land Through the Stereoscope', 'India Through the Stereoscope' and 'The United States of America Through the Stereoscope'. Of significant stereoscopic sets, the 'India Through the Stereoscope' (ITS) collection will inform the remainder of this article as it is analysed for its ability to contribute to contemporary understandings of the stereoscope as a medium, as well as for the problematic relationship it reveals between its photographer and the proliferation of colonial rhetoric.

'Stereoscope Making': inside the Underwood and Underwood factory, showing the manufacturing processes for its stereoscope (handheld viewer). Another image in the company's magazine shows the mass production of stereographs (stereo cards).

Photographer(s) unknown. Westwood, New Jersey, United States of America. Circa 1901.

Source: The Stereoscopic Photograph, 1 (1901), pp. 28 and 29.

James Ricalton and 'India through the Stereoscope'

Comprising of one hundred stereo cards, a book titled India Through the Stereoscope: A Journey through Hindustan written by James Ricalton, and a selection of accompanying maps, the ITS collection was published by Underwood and Underwood in the early 1900s. The photographs of the ITS collection are believed to have been taken by American photographer, traveller, big-game hunter, naturalist and author James A. Ricalton (1844–1929). A former schoolteacher from Maplewood, New Jersey, Ricalton was employed by Underwood and Underwood from the late 1890s. Travelling to Delhi to witness the Durbar of 1903, through the Himalayas, Sri Lanka, Palestine and many locations in Europe, he also served as a war correspondent (The New York Times). Ricalton photographed the Spanish-American War (1898) in the Philippines, the Boxer Rebellion (1900) in China, and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) in Northeast China.

'A hill-country "Ekka" with passenger [identified as James Ricalton] and baggage, coming from Cashmere to Murree, India' (printed caption).

Photographer unknown; published by Underwood and Underwood. Jammu and Kashmir, India. Circa 1903.

There is some debate, however, regarding the exact dates of the creation and publication of the ITS collection (see image below). Susan Kempler argues that Ricalton's printed book of 'India Through the Stereoscope' was published by Underwood and Underwood in 1907, while his tour of India took place during the years 1888 to 1889. Mitchell Winter, however, analyses a set of the ITS collection that was published in 1900, seven years before Kempler's suggested date. The set of stereo cards also maintains a range of publication dates along with the printed volume, with the set I reference (in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections) dated to 1903 and a book dated to 1900. Much of this confusion stems from Ricalton's omission of dates from his own journal entries or stereoscopic photographs.

'India Through the Stereoscope': an example of the Underwood and Underwood 'Travel System', featuring stereo cards with storage case, printed book with maps, and handheld stereoscope viewer (required for the full, three-dimensional experience).

Source: https://www.storyltd.com/auction/item.aspx?eid=4127&lotno=10 (accessed 28 August 2020)

Reading 'India Through the Stereoscope' (ITS)

Writing about the use of photographs within social research, anthropologist Marcus Banks proposes three questions to guide researcher. The questions are as follows: (a.) what is the image of, what is its content?; (b.) who took it or made ti, when and why; and (c.) how do other people come to have it, how do they read it, what do they do with it? Addressing the methods and motives of the three main actors in photographic research – namely the photograph, the photographer and the viewer (if one includes the researcher in the latter category) – Banks' questions provide a framework through which one may conduct the visual analysis of photographs within social science research.

When analysing the ITS stereo cards, Banks' questions invite us to consider the positionally of the photographer, which, in this case, is the American James Ricalton, as well as the demographics of the intended audience, a group decidedly Western in its make-up. Winter argues that Ricalton uses stereoscopic photographs to index particular ways of seeing the subjects he imaged as either 'civilized' or 'uncivilized'. Through the composition of the images and Ricalton's indexing of those he photographed, as well as the contents of the accompanying text, I argue that Ricalton employed his camera as a tool to further the contemporary and pervasive colonial visual narrative.

'Shelling rice, and gossiping with the neighbors – home life of contented citizens of Cashmere' (printed caption) [Position 23].

Photograph by James Ricalton; published by Underwood and Underwood. Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. Circa 1903.

Take Position 23, for example (see image above). This stereograph was taken in or near the present-day city of Srinagar, which is located within the Jammu and Kashmir region (referred to as 'Cashmere' by Ricalton). The area lies within the Kashmir Valley and populates both banks of the Jhelum River. Ricalton refers to the area as the 'City of the Sun' in Position 22, an adaptation of its Sanskrit name, though he later calls it the 'city of filth and intolerable stenches'.

Having tackled Banks' second question ('who took it or made it, when and why?'), the first question ('what is the image of, what is its content?') may now be addressed. In Position 23, a group gathers under a thatched roof as they 'gossip' and undertake the process of shelling rice. The group consists of four women and four men, as well as eight children of varying ages. The group surrounds two 'rice-mortars', and two women hold large 'rice-pounding sticks'. A man also stands near the women on the right of the frame; however, Ricalton informs us that that man 'holding the rice-pounding stick is a pretender; the seated woman belongs to that rice-mortar if I may so call it'.

Position 23: detail of stereo card showing members of the group who do not wish to be photographed.

Ricalton informs the viewer that it is forbidden to take the likeness of 'Mohammedan men or women'. He writes that the photograph was only made possible through baksheesh, or a payment such as a tip or bribe, stating 'backsheesh is often more persuasive than the prophet of Allah!' A result of their religious beliefs, two of the women hide their faces, as one turns to avoid the camera and the other sits behind one of the men (see image above). A man sitting against the house also appears to be shielding his face with his hand, but Ricalton does not bring this to the viewer's attention.

Ricalton also writes about various cultural and religious practices of those photographed in Position 23. As previously mentioned, the photographer introduces the faith of those he photographed, stating that they are 'Mohammedan' (Muslim), and writes of their aversion to being photographed, though he fails to expound upon the reasons behind their aversion. As for material culture, Ricalton brings the viewer's attention to the home which serves as the backdrop to the photograph. Describing the homes of the Srinagar area in Position 22 (see image below), Ricalton writes that '[t]he houses of wood and mud are usually windowless, dilapidated, ramshackle affairs, dirty within and without and populated with entomological millions who dispute bed and board with the nominal owners'.

'Everyday life in the Vale of Cashmere – S.W., to quaint bridge and houses in the City of the Sun' (printed caption) [Position 22].

Photograph by James Ricalton; published by Underwood and Underwood. Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. Circa 1903.

With this unflattering description in mind, Ricalton writes that in Position 23 'we see a thatched roof, showing that roofs are not invariably of grass-covered earth; thatch is undoubtedly a later innovation'. From this statement the viewer may presume that roofs of 'grass-covered earth' are more common in the area, with newer buildings utilising the thatched style. Ricalton also brings the viewer's attention to 'baskets made of willow twigs' and 'basket-scoops for winnowing the shelled rice from the husks' (see image below). Recording the materials from which the items are constructed as well as their uses, the photographer provides information about the materials available to those living in this geographic location, as well has how the materials are incorporated into the lives of those pictured.

Position 23: detail of stereo card showing willow twig baskets and basket-scoops.

Concerning gender roles within the group, Ricalton states that 'the women do much of the drudgery'. Therefore, he insinuates that the women of this group perform many of the manual tasks, such as shelling rice and child-rearing, as the woman near the right of the frame stands over the rice-mortar while balancing a child on her knee. The viewer is also encouraged to note two men on the doorstep of the home. These individuals, Ricalton writes, are 'persons a cut higher', a status revealed by their 'snowy turbans of puggrees' (see image below). Because these individuals don 'close fitting skull caps', a phenomenon which Ricalton states is common with the 'Cashmerians', he relates that these two men hold a higher status within this group's social hierarchy. However, before conducting any further analysis, it must be stated that any viewer or researcher must continually question these cultural observations, recognising Ricalton's biases as a foreign traveller and photographer, as well as the biases of those who informed his experience in the region and his writings thereafter.

Position 23: detail of stereo card showing the two men wearing 'close fitting skull caps of the Cashmerians'.

Since the content of the photograph and the identity of the photographer have been addressed, fulfilling the first two questions outlined by Banks, the final question of how this photograph can be read may now be broached. In the context of gender superiority, Ricalton often refers to his female photographic subjects with regard to their beauty or virginal status, further subjugating them to his white male gaze. He comments on the 'morose countenances' of the women, stating that neither of them would be 'liable to be mistaken for an houri'. Here the term houri refers to 'virginal maidens said to accompany devout Muslim men in the afterlife', revealing Ricalton's Western construction of Muslim femininity. Proceeding to describe them as 'miserable domiciles', he attempts to reassure the (presumably Western male) viewer that one should not 'determine Cashmere types from these low-class women', given the country's reputation for 'pretty women'.

Not averse to a sweeping declaration, Ricalton informs the reader of the 'universal fondness of the female sex for personal decoration'. Interestingly, he then calls for the participation of the viewer, asking: 'Do you see any signs of an exception, or do you again see ear-rings and bracelets, and maybe anklets, only for grimy skirts?' Inviting the viewer to scour the image for signs of jewellery and decoration, such as the bracelets of the woman sitting closest to the camera, Ricalton aims to increase the immersive experience of the three-dimensional stereograph, intensifying the '"real"-ness of each outlook'.

Winter suggests that a combination of the concurrent regimes of power and Ricalton's personal politics led to a desire to 'have some things visualised (e.g. poverty in India) and other not visualised (e.g. poverty in America or Britain)'. This assertion is vindicated in the text supporting Position 23, as Ricalton writes: 'I am sorry we cannot peep inside, I do not think you would care to lodge therein... [It is] a little too low for western fancy.' This attitude of Western supremacy contributes to the creation and sustainment of the colonial visual narrative which was being proliferated at the time. An image rich with analytic potential, there is much that could be written about Ricalton's Shelling Rice. Through the employment of Banks' framework for the use of photographs within social research, a more detailed reading can be made of the roles of each of the actors involved in the creation, distribution and experience of Position 23.

Conclusion

Rich in cultural and historical detail, the 'India Through the Stereoscope' set provides a unique opportunity for the social science researcher. An analysis of the ITS collection invariably highlights the success of the one of the largest stereoscopic companies of the time, which, through a combination of fortuitous timing and an effective business model, created an international market for stereoscopic travel sets. Through the employment of experienced authors, photographers and travellers such as James Ricalton, the company of Underwood and Underwood was able to produce content with lasting scientific and artistic merit.

Laura Bergin

University of Oxford postgraduate (Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, reading for M.Phil.)

28 August 2020

This is the third of three blog articles by Laura Bergin on the subject of stereoscopic photography. Her first article, titled 'The Stereoscope: The Beginning of an Optical Revolution', is available online here. Her second (previous) article, titled 'Anthropology and the Stereoscope', is available here.

Bibliography

'Back from the Far East: Prof. Ricalton Reaches Maplewood, N.J., After Two Years of Adventures', The New York Times, 19 October 1903, <https://www.nytimes.com/1903/10/19/archives/back-from-the-far-east-prof-ricalton-reaches-maplewood-n-j-after.html> (accessed 28 August 2020).

Marcus Banks, Visual Methods in Social Research (London: Sage Publications, 2001).

William Brey, 'Ten Million Stereo Views a Year', Stereo World, 16/6 (January /February 1990), pp. 6–12.

Historical Photographs of China, 'Ricalton, James A.', <https://hpcbristol.net/photographer/ricalton-james-a> (accessed 28 August 2020).

Historic Camera, 'Underwood & Underwood', <http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2338&> (accessed 28 August 2020).

Kansas Historical Society, 'Elmer and Bert Underwood', <https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/elmer-and-bert-underwood/12227> (accessed 28 August 2020).

Kashmir Tour, 'A Historical Background of Srinagar', <https://www.kashmirtourpackage.org/hisotry-of-srinagar.html> (accessed 28 August 2020).

Susan Kempler, 'America "Discovers" the World: James Ricalton's "Travels on Next to Nothing", 1844–1929' (Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 1991).

Merriam-Webster, 'Baksheesh', <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/baksheesh> (accessed 28 August 2020).

James Ricalton, India through the Stereoscope: A Journey through Hindustan (New York: Underwood and Underwood, 1900).

Smithsonian American Art Museum, 'Bert Underwood', <https://americanart.si.edu/artist/bert-underwood-7129> (accessed 28 August 2020).

Smithsonian American Art Museum, 'Elmer Underwood', <https://americanart.si.edu/artist/elmer-underwood-7128> (accessed 28 August 2020).

'Stereoscope Making', The Stereoscopic Photograph: The World and Its People through the Stereoscope, 1 (1901), pp. 28–29.

Richard Vokes, 'Reflections on a Complex (and Cosmopolitan) Archive: Postcards and Photography in Early Colonial Uganda, c. 1904–1928', History and Anthropology, 21 (2010), pp. 375–409.

Mitchell A. Winter, 'Optics of American Empire: James Ricalton and Stereoscopic Ethnography in Early Twentieth Century India, 1888–1907' (M.A. thesis, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2018).

Folk costume and wooden churches: Lantern slides of Central and Eastern Europe in the Nevill Forbes collection

noreply@blogger.com (Pitt Rivers Museum Photograph Collections) — Wed, 12 May 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Woman wearing the traditional dress of Detva in Slovakia, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian empire (hand-coloured lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Detva, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Undated, circa 1910 (before 1918).

In this blog article, Margaret Hardesty and James Morgan – both students of various languages including Czech – describe a collection of lantern slides showing people and places from across Central and Eastern Europe, part of a larger collection of photographs transferred from the Taylor Institution (Bodleian Slavonic and Modern Greek Library) to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2016:

Our focus of study is the 'Central and Eastern Europe' section of the Nevill Forbes collection of photographs. The subject matter of the majority of these lantern slides can be attributed to places in the modern-day Czech Republic and Slovakia, while several show locations as far apart as Carpathian Ruthenia (today part of Ukraine, but formerly territory of Czechoslovakia), Poland, Russia, Serbia and Bulgaria. The standard-format glass slides, some of which are hand-coloured, reproduce original material of various kinds including postcards and stock images of capital cities and smaller towns of cultural significance; artworks ranging from etchings to paintings; and one sequence of photographs that appears to have been taken by a professional anthropologist.

In content, the lantern slides document places as much as they do people, and this reflects the essence of our work: we have been largely interested in locating each slide on the map, and, moreover, identifying the year each photograph may have been produced. At the same time, we have attempted to identify the people who appear in the slides, or, more specifically, the geographical communities to which they belong. Our research has led to the discovery of a rich history of traditions in the form of folk dress, rituals and architecture.

Lantern slides from the Nevill Forbes collection, some of which incorporate colour overpainting of the photographic image, viewed on a light box.

Many of the lantern slides in the collection depict Czech and Slovak folk dress, or lidový kroj. These beautiful costumes are rich and varied from one village to the next, with some of the tiniest villages boasting the most unique and unusual designs. Without accompanying documentation, it remains unclear whether the slides were used for educational purposes or perhaps instead for anthropological documentation. Nevertheless, they provide a wonderful insight into the sheer amount of cultural diversity that exists in even seemingly homogenous regions.

Two portraits of men wearing traditional clothing of Ždiar (lantern slide).

Photographer(s) unknown. Ždiar, Prešov, Slovakia. Undated, circa 1930.

A number of the photographs appear to have been taken in the small village of Ždiar, which lies in the mountains of northern Slovakia. The people of Ždiar are Gorals (from the word for 'mountain'), and the red and blue embroidery on the men's trousers can be seen in other Goral costumes throughout Slovakia and Poland. What makes Ždiar's dress very distinctive is the pom-pom closures on the waistcoat as well as the decorations near the bottom of the trousers (see examples above). Married women from Ždiar can be identified most distinctly by the flat-topped hat that is often worn with a scarf (below).

Two portraits of women wearing traditional clothing of Ždiar (lantern slide).

Photographer(s) unknown. Ždiar, Prešov, Slovakia. Undated, circa 1930.

Detva is a town in central Slovakia. The men's folk dress of Detva includes wide-legged, fringed white trousers. Most depictions show men in very short cropped tops, often with a jacket slung across their chests. However, some images show them in thick waistcoats with the jacket draped over their shoulders, as in the example below, the most likely explanation being that this variation was worn in winter.

Portrait of two Slovak men wearing the traditional dress of Detva in the Banská Bystrica region (hand-coloured lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Detva, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Undated, circa 1910 (before 1918).

The women's folk dress is surprisingly varied while still managing to be recognisable. While many towns and villages have elaborate hats or headdresses, the women of Detva often wear their heads bare or with a scarf. Their white blouses have large, puffy sleeves with elaborate patches of embroidery, often in yellow or red. The brusliak, or bodice, is beautifully embroidered with a floral design, but is often concealed by a frilled white scarf that is crossed at the front and tied at the back [2016.43.371].

Portrait of a woman wearing the traditional dress of Detva, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian empire (hand-coloured lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Detva, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Undated, circa 1910 (before 1918).

Vlčnov is a village in the Slovácko region of Moravia in the Czech Republic, known for its richly unique culture, notably its 'Ride of the Kings' festival and its folk costume. The women's folk dress of Vlčnov is most distinguishable by the large, angular, perfectly pleated sleeves and by the red yarn flowers that are worn across the chest on the bodice. Possibly the most intriguing aspect of these slides showing women from Vlčnov is that they appear to be dressed in their everyday clothing rather than a costume for a special event. It is a sharp contrast from modern photographs, where these costumes are kept pristine. The women shown in the slides have flatter, less ornate skirts. Their sleeves are more softly pleated and gently sag. They are only wearing simple scarves on their heads. Despite these differences, the way they are dressed still unmistakably identifies them with their village.

Portrait of a married woman and her daughter from Vlčnov (lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Vlčnov, Slovácko, Czech Republic. Undated, circa 1930.

The lantern slide below [2016.43.435] shows four Slovak men standing on Valaškovský Bridge in the small town of Humenné in eastern Slovakia. The bridge was constructed in 1900, using the same technique as was used to build the Eiffel Tower. The rivets were individually heated up before being pounded into place. The relation to the Eiffel Tower can perhaps be seen mostly clearly in the lattice design. The Valaškovský Bridge survived both wars and stands proudly to this day, but there is something special about being able to see it soon after its completion. It was an exciting feat for the town that has lost its prestige over time.

Group portrait of four men pictured standing on the famous Valaškovský Bridge in the village of Humenné (lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Humenné, Prešov, Slovakia. Undated, circa 1905 (after 1900).

Notes written on the mounts of some of the lantern slides guided a good part of our research. However, fully identifying the locations shown or the year each photograph was taken was in many cases impossible, and the slides for which we found information often demanded innovative approaches. Google Maps and its Street View feature proved invaluable, while reverse image searches, text- and image-centric databases, and Wikipedia pages in Czech, Slovak and other languages with which we did not have such a strong grasp were of frequent help.

Some of the images proved difficult to identify until we had figured out the correct terminology to describe what we were looking at. As for the lantern slide below [2016.43.387], we kept thinking of the stone structure as a tower (vež) and searching accordingly to no avail. Eventually, we managed to draw a comparison to similar structures in Prague, and realised it wasn't a tower at all but rather a gate (brána). As for a view of the Old Town Hall in Levoča [2016.43.390], we were able to identify it only after guessing it to be a large public meeting place such as a town hall rather than a church or residential building.

View of the impressive town gate in Domažlice (lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Domažlice, Chodsko, Czech Republic. Undated, circa 1935 (after 1932).

One particular focus has been to identify the various wooden churches, mostly located in Carpathian Ruthenia, captured on these slides. This was made all the more challenging – but, ultimately, more interesting – because some buildings have undergone significant alteration or renovation, or occasionally have been moved, or sometimes are no longer in existence. The Church of Saint Demetrius in Repinne, Ukraine, was particularly difficult to identify, given that its exterior was lined with tin in 1995, greatly changing its appearance. The lantern slide (below) preserves the original wooden façade of the building, belonging to the Maramureş gothic style, which was significantly damaged in a fire in the early 1970s, when many nearby churches came under attack from anti-religious campaigns. Fortunately, this church was one of the few to be saved from being burned down completely.

View of the Church of Saint Demetrius in Repinne, Ukraine, built in the Maramureş gothic style (hand-coloured lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Repinne, Mizhhirskyi, Ukraine. Undated, circa 1910.

Another wooden church to be preserved both in these slides and physically to this day is the 'articular' church in Svätý Kríž, Slovakia. Articular churches take their name from the Articles containing the permission granted to certain Protestant congregations by Habsburg rule to build churches for their followers: there were originally thirty-eight such wooden churches, almost all built within the borders of today's Slovakia. Five remain in existence today, including this church in Svätý Kríž. It was originally built in Paludza, a nearby village that became submerged after the construction of the Liptovská Mara reservoir. The church's sustained life is in large part due to the painstaking process of its deconstruction and reconstruction over four years during the 1970s. It can be seen in its former position in the lantern slide below [2016.43.463], though modern pictures attest to the great care taken to transport and preserve it: the only visible difference is that it is now missing its clock.

View of a wooden church located in the Slovakian village of Paludza, as seen here, but which was later moved to Svätý Kríž to make way for the construction of a reservoir (lantern slide).

Photographer unknown. Paludza, Žilina, Slovakia. Undated, circa 1930 (before 1974).

Just as many of the places and costumes seen in these lantern slides have survived to this day, so the slides themselves will now be preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum, with information available via its online database, for posterity and the benefit of interested parties. Some slides remain a mystery, their contexts and histories still concealed, and some will inevitably remain only in the snapshots of what used to be. The gleaming new bridge where people were excited to pose for pictures still stands today though it has lost its shine. Old wooden buildings were replaced with new modern ones, though the streets still curve the same way. The church from Paludza has now lost its clock: perhaps this symbolises the departure of old customs from our current time, or maybe it is a wink at future generations who will be able to view it in all its timelessness.

Margaret Hardesty and James Morgan

15 February 2021