An interesting history of a "Buzzing Toy"

Figure 1: The ‘buzzing toy’ is in the ‘Ribbon Reeds’ case on the ground floor of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Photo by Liangyu Gao. 

If you have visited the Pitt Rivers Museum, you may have missed the ‘Ribbon Reeds’ case on the ground floor. It is placed right in front of another case and difficult to stand directly in front of. However, once you notice it, you can see a ‘buzzing toy’ (1937.40.7) in the bottom-right corner of the case. This object is a toy bull-roarer from the Transfly region of southwestern Papua New Guinea. It was donated to the Museum in 1937 by Francis Edgar (F.E.) Williams, a government anthropologist who worked in Papua New Guinea for 20 years. The role of a government anthropologist was to conduct ethnographic research in a colony of the British Empire so the government could effectively understand and rule over its colonies that spanned the globe. Whether these ethnographic reports were actually useful and used by the Colonial Office is questionable, but regardless, Williams’ research as a government anthropologist provides ethnographic data on Papua New Guinea in the first half of the 20th century and is why this object is in the Pitt Rivers today. Williams was a Rhodes Scholar who obtained a Diploma in Anthropology, B.Sc., and D.Sc. from the University of Oxford. He conducted fieldwork in several different regions of Papua New Guinea, but his book, Papuans of the Transfly (1936) is the main primary documentation that discusses where this object came from. 

Figure 2: F.E. Williams in Papua New Guinea (from Pacific Islands Monthly). 

Though it is called a ‘buzzing toy’, this object is also known as a bull-roarer. There is a separate case, not too far from the ‘Ribbon Reeds’ case on the ground floor of the Museum, which houses bull-roarers from around the world. These are pieces of wood attached to a string and are played by whipping the string in the air to create friction and sound. This object is smaller than the bull-roarers in that case at the Museum and is not made from wood, but palm and coconut leaf. When you see the other ribbon reeds in the Pitt Rivers, you can see why this object was placed in that case as opposed to the Bull-Roarer case, but it is interesting to note how it could be in either case. Bull-roarers are significant for anthropologists because they appear around the world but take different shapes and forms. These objects are useful to compare similarities and differences across cultures.

Figure 3: F.E. Williams sketched this map of the Keraki region where the object was likely made (Williams 1936: 453). 

This bull-roarer was likely made by the Keraki people who inhabit the Transfly region of Papua New Guinea. They live in an extreme climate with wet seasons that flood the region, and dry seasons with extreme heat. Palm and coconut leaves grow well in this environment and are the materials used to make this object. The actual creator and users of the object are unknown but given the fact that the object is called a toy and that other, similar objects in the same case were used by children, this object was likely used by a child as well.  

Though there are several unknowns about the ‘buzzing toy’, looking through the Pitt Rivers Museum Archives, Rhodes Trust Archives, primary documentation from Williams himself, and similar objects in the Museum have illuminated hidden parts of this object’s biography. This new information can help researchers, curators, and visitors alike understand more about the life history of the ‘buzzing toy’ and make a seemingly hidden object in the museum more visible. 

 

By Maria Murad

DPhil student in Anthropology

University of Oxford

 

Bibliography: 

Pacific Islands Monthly (1935) ‘Awarded Cilento Medal’, 21 March. 

 

Williams, F.E. (1936) Papuans of the Transfly. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 

 

Researching Melanesian Kapkaps

Kapkap display awaiting new labels

My volunteer work at the Museum currently involves working on new labels to appear in a series of displays featuring Melanesian body ornaments. When I look at the objects in the display cases, what stand out - with their striking contrast of dark and white in mysterious geometric patterns - are the 'kapkaps'. The name sounds rather cute, doesn't it?

A traditionally made kapkap, which is worn around the neck or on the forehead, is a circular white clamshell disc overlaid with carved dark-brown turtle-shell fretwork. I was attracted and intrigued by these beautiful objects.

Finding out how they were produced was exciting and enjoyable. I found an informative article entitled "Of Skin, blood, and bone: The kapkap of New Ireland" by Graeme Were in 'Melanesia: Art and encounter' (British Museum, 2013).

The kapkaps on display in the Museum are from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. I learnt from this article that the significance of kapkaps, and the process of making them, varies - not only over time - but within the different areas of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Were analyses in detail the production and use of kapkaps by the Nalik speaking people in northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea.

Two of the kapkaps on display from New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
From left to right: PRM 1938.36.1702 and PRM 1938.36.1703 © Pitt Rivers Museum

I describe some of this process below, which is specific to this particular area.

Giant clam shells on display in the Lower Gallery of the
Museum © Pitt Rivers Museum

Making a kapkap is a long and complicated process.

First, the clamshell plate, which has been heated, dried and cooled down to be hardened, is ground down. This is done in a secluded place by a group of men, who take this in turn, using a stone tool. Apparently just this process may take several weeks.

After the cooperative effort of the initial stage, the second stage - carving the turtle-shell - is a solitary business. A chosen local craftsman goes on a fast, and collects certain leaves from the forest, bundles them, and buries them in the sand on the beach as an offering. Then, in his dream, he receives an image of the kapkap to be created. In a special shelter - in a secluded location - the craftsman works along carving the turtle-shell, which is traditionally done with a shark's tooth.

The final stage is to put the smoothed clamshell disc and the turtle-shell fretwork together. A hole is drilled in the centre of each of them, through which a string is threaded and knotted to secure the two plates on top of each other.

It is said that the kapkap has a magical power to create or to ward off sorcery. For this reason, apart from at mortuary feasts, it is rarely seen publicly and is mostly hidden in some dark corner of the clan chief's house. The more power he gets in the community, the more complicated becomes the pattern of his kapkap. When he dies, his kapkap also dies. The clamshell disc and the turtle-shell fretwork are separated and are either burned, or buried, with him. Sometimes the clamshell disc is kept for recycling.

You can see these fascinating objects for yourself on the Lower Gallery on the first floor of the Museum. If you are not able to visit in person, you can look at some of the kapkaps in the Museum collection using the online object catalogue. Simply enter 'Melanesia' under continent, select 'ornament' under classification, then enter 'shell' and 'turtle' for materials. Finally perform your search.

In this podcast recorded in the Museum's galleries, listen to Graeme Were in conversation with Ben Burt (British Museum), talking about these fascinating shell ornaments:



Fusa McLynn
Collections Volunteer

The Cooke Daniels Expedition

Heather Donoghue of the University of East Anglia Sainsbury Research Centre recently visited to the Pitt Rivers Museum. Her aim was to further her research on all the objects in UK and Australian museums collected on the Cooke Daniels exhibition more than a century ago.

The Cooke Daniels Expedition visited British New Guinea in 1903 and 1904. Major William Cooke Daniels (d.1918), Professor Charles Gabriel Seligman (1873 - 1940), Dr Walter Mersh Strong (1873-1946) and Mr A. H. Dunning undertook the expedition. 

The Pitt Rivers Museum has 174 objects collected during the exhibition. To search these objects on the Museum's object collections online database enter 'Cooke Daniels' in the 'PRM Source' field in the search criteria. 

1905.63.7, 'Carved board painted, representing 
conventionalized human form in squatting posture' 
collected from Goaribari Island during the expedition. 
On display in case 113.A in the Museum Court. 

Cooke Daniels was a wealthy American department store owner, world traveller and organiser of the expedition. Seligman was a British anthropologist who had trained as a medical doctor specialising in pathology. Mersh Strong, also a doctor, acted as laboratory assistant to Seligman. Dunning was responsible for photography and cinematic recording on the trip. 

Cooke Daniels financed the expedition after a chance meeting with Seligman on a fishing trip in Hampshire. The group also received a grant from the Royal Society towards the expedition expenses. Seligman had some relevant experience having travelled to New Guinea on a previous trip as a member of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits (the sea passage north of Australia and south of Papua New Guinea) in 1898 led by Alfred Cort Haddon.

The Cooke Daniels expedition explored British New Guinea, the south east area of modern-day Papua New Guinea. On route the party stopped in Australia. They visited the Bensbach River in the west, close to the border with Dutch New Guinea, travelled to Port Moresby (the capital) and visited Waima and Mekeo in the central district. The trip continued south east and then explored the smaller islands: the Trobriand group, Marshall Bennett Islands and Muyua Island. Cooke Daniels hired and schooner and launch to motor up creeks and sail around the islands. Mersh Strong resigned when the exhibition returned to Port Moresby. 



Seligman sent reports to the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain on the trip's progress. An article in the April 1905 issue of 'Science' reported that the exhibition had left for New Guinea in September 1903 and had just recently arrived back in England. 

Objects collected on the expedition now at Pitt Rivers include tools, weapons such as arrows and clubs, canoe prows and betel crushers, musical instruments including bullroarers and drums, lime spatulas, and ornaments made of shell, feathers, and wallaby teeth. Collections are also held at The British Museum, the Horniman Museum, the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Australian Museum. As well as a collecting objects and specimens, the expedition also made photographs, film footage and sound recordings. 

1905.63.62 & 1905.63.42, armlets in the making from the
Trobriand Islands collected during the expedition.
On display in case 117.B in the Museum's Lower Gallery.

Seligman sorted and divided the objects, then donated collections to museums on Cooke Daniels' behalf. Seligman and Merch Strong wrote up the findings of the expedition in two articles entitled 'Anthropogeographical Investigations in British New Guinea' appearing in 1906 in the Geographical Journal. Seligman went on to publish 'The Melanesians of British New Guinea' in 1910. 

Cooke Daniels was a partner in the Daniels and Fisher stores in Denver, Colorado. Some of his ashes were stored in a lead box in the tower of the well known department store building. Cooke Daniels was known as a world traveller in his day. His ashes moved when the store moved location. 

Seligman and his wife Brenda Seligman studied and taught Anthropology, researching communities in Sri Lanka, Sudan, Egypt, China and Japan.

1998.271.58, photograph of a black and white drawing
of Charles Gabriel Seligman by artist William Rothenstein

Madeleine Ding
Assistant Curator