Pitt Rivers Museum photos

The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, UK has been discussed a few times in the past becuase of it's incredible ethnographic collection. Much of it is from Polynesia, picked up on Cook's voyages around the Pacific. The collection is particularly cool because so much is crammed into a relatively small space, giving it a Tiki bar vibe. In fact a couple of years back, I organised a trip for UK Tikiphiles to soak up the atmosphere there, then retire for cocktails at a local bar.

Anyway, recently they allowed flash photography to be used for a trial period. This came out of the blue and I wasn't really prepared (my camera batteries were almost dead) but I managed to take a few snaps to share on Tiki Central. Many exhibits are behind glass, so apologies for any glare, etc.

Trader Woody

[ Edited by: Trader Woody on 2004-03-18 16:18 ]

TraderW,

Those pictures are facinating. Our favorite subject as he once was.

Fantastic! I am an ethnographic museum freak. I have seen pictures of the Pitt Rivers rooms, with all the old dark wood display cases, and always wanted to go there.
They did not modernize since they opened (when?). THIS is what inspired the modern artists to break with classic art, the feeling of Voodoo comes across.

In pic number 3, are we actually looking at the forefather of all puffer fish lamps?

Glad the photos are of interest. Yeah, it's a trult fascinating place with an incredible atmosphere. It opened in 1884, and hasn't changed since, apart from the collection ever-uincreasing. The labels are all hand-written and the artifacts are arranged by type rather than country of origin.

That Voodoo vibe is at it's most concenrated around the shrunken heads - I'll post a couple of photos in a different topic so that those that normally aren't interested in the contents of a museum can take a look. Meanwhile, here's a couple more pics:

That last photo shows a recent shield from New Guinea. It turns out that they have a lot of respect for the cartoon character (Daredevil?) because of his positive qualities, so incorporated him into the design!

Trader Woody

Incredible! Must tell my friend in the UK about this. Thanks for sharing the wonderful photos.

TW, that last image is of "The Phantom," (Phan-tom), the ghost that walks... j$

The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, UK has been discussed a few times in the past becuase of it's incredible ethnographic collection. Much of it is from Polynesia, picked up on Cook's voyages around the Pacific.

On which voyage did Captain Cook find the Blowfish Lamp? Sigh Another place to add to my European "I'd really like to spend a day there" list...

Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Freelance, Ph.D., D.F.S

[ Edited by: freddiefreelance on 2004-03-19 09:03 ]

That last photo shows a recent shield from New Guinea. It turns out that they have a lot of respect for the cartoon character (Daredevil?) because of his positive qualities, so incorporated him into the design!

Amazing pix, Woody.

That guy on the shield is the Phantom, a WWII-era character.

This reminds me of a carving at the Field Museum here in Chicago (also made in New Guinea) of a guy in a bowler hat. The natives there must have had a visitor from Europe wearing such a hat, and they incorporated the strange (to them) image into a carving. What use would a bowler hat possibly have to 19th century Papuans? They must have been completely confused by the strange headgear!

The bowler hat and the Phantom (perhaps glimpsed in a WWII soldier's comic book?) probably tie into the cargo cult mentality. Objects like these are so foreign to these people (more so in the past than now, of course), arriving on great ships of steel or from the sky. They take on fetishistic (thats: cult image, totem, or idol, nothing to do with whips) importance, since their meaining and use is often totally incomprehnsible to the islanders.