Fighting Fibres: Kiribati Armour and Museum Collections
2018
This book brings together artists, curators, researchers and conservators to consider the significance of coconut fibre armour from the islands of Kiribati. Taking as its focus the armour found in museum collections, it investigates the historical context that led to these unique artefacts leaving the Pacific and entering the orbit of British collectors and institutions, as well the legacies of those practices in the present. As well as exploring the historical milieux surrounding its collection, the book includes essays from expert conservators that discuss the challenges of caring for coconut fibre armour. Other contributions include case studies focusing on the construction and variety of the armour and helmets, and the findings of a comprehensive survey which has tracked down and documented every piece of Kiribati armour held in UK museum collections. Finally, the book considers the significance of coconut fibre armour in the present, with particular reference to the work of a group of I-Kiribati artists whose creativity and innovative research has led to the production of a contemporary suit of armour inspired by the armour of the past.
Related papers
Chapter 4, Musee de quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris: Sisi fale—Tongan coconut fibre waist garment, with Melenaite Taumoefolau
Collecting in the South Sea: The Voyage of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux 1791-1794, ed. Bronwen Douglas, Fanny Wonu Veys, and Billie Lythberg (Leiden: Sidestone Press), 85–92, 2018
An analysis of an 18th-century Tongan sisi fale in the collection of the Musee du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris. This book is a study of ‘collecting’ undertaken by Joseph Antoine Bruni d’Entrecasteaux and his shipmates in Tasmania, the western Pacific Islands, and Indonesia. In 1791–1794 Bruni d’Entrecasteaux led a French naval expedition in search of the lost vessels of La Pérouse which had last been seen by Europeans at Botany Bay in March 1788. After Bruni d’Entrecasteaux died near the end of the voyage and the expedition collapsed in political disarray in Java, its collections and records were subsequently scattered or lost. The book’s core is a richly illustrated examination, analysis, and catalogue of a large array of ethnographic objects collected during the voyage, later dispersed, and recently identified in museums in France, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. The focus on artefacts is informed by a broad conception of collecting as grounded in encounters or exchanges with Indigenous protagonists and also as materialized in other genres—written accounts, vocabularies, and visual representations (drawings, engravings, and maps). Historically, the book outlines the antecedents, occurrences, and aftermath of the voyage, including its location within the classic era of European scientific voyaging (1766–1840) and within contemporary colonial networks. Particular chapters trace the ambiguous histories of the extant collections. Ethnographically, contributors are alert to local settings, relationships, practices, and values; to Indigenous uses and significance of objects; to the reciprocal, dialogic nature of collecting; to local agency or innovation in exchanges; and to present implications of objects and their histories, especially for modern scholars and artists, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
Reaching across the Ocean: Barkcloth in Oceania and Beyond
pacific presences Oceanic Art and European Museums -volume 2, 2018
Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their displaced heritage, and renewed interest in ancestral forms and practices. This two-volume book enlarges understandings of Oceanic art and enables new reflection upon museums and ways of working in and around them. In dialogue with Islanders' perspectives, It exemplifies a growing commitment on the part of scholars and curators to work collaboratively and responsively. Volume II illustrates the sheer variety of Pacific artefacts and histories in museums, and similarly the heterogeneity of the issues and opportunities that they raise. Over thirty essays explore materialities, collection histories, legacies of empire, and contemporary projects.
Chapter 4, Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris (Includes 'sisi fale - Tongan coconut fibre waist garment', by Billie Lythberg and Melenaite Taumoefolau, pp. 85-6)
Collecting in the South Sea: The Voyage of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux 1791-1794, ed. Bronwen Douglas, Fanny Wonu Veys, and Billie Lythberg (Leiden: Sidestone Press), 71-91, 2018
The effect of objects: the return of a north Vanuatu textile from the Australian Museum to the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. In A Pacific Odyssey: Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific. Papers in Honour of Jim Specht
Records of the Australian Museum, Supplement, 2004
Hoe Whakairo - Painted paddles from New Zealand
Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums, 2018
Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their displaced heritage, and renewed interest in ancestral forms and practices. Pacific Presences is a two-volume book that enlarges understandings of Oceanic art and enables new reflection upon museums and ways of working in and around them. In dialogue with Islanders' perspectives, it exemplifies a growing commitment on the part of scholars and curators to work collaboratively and responsively. Over thirty essays explore materialities, collection histories, legacies of empire, and contemporary projects. Read the whole book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/pacific-presences-vol-2
fighting
fibres
Kiribati Armour
and Museum
Collections
edited by
JULIE ADAMS, POLLY BENCE
& ALISON CLARK
fighting
fibres
Sidestone Press
fighting
fibres
Kiribati Armour
and Museum
Collections
edited by
JULIE ADAMS, POLLY BENCE
& ALISON CLARK
PACIFIC PRESENCES 2
© 2018 Individual Authors
Series: Pacific Presences, volume 2
Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden
www.sidestone.com
Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press
Photograph cover:
Front cover: Close-up of overalls in Whitby Museum. Photograph by Josh
Murfitt, Courtesy of Whitby Museum.
Back cover: Portrait of a warrior taken by Rev. George Eastman
O.B.E., 1920s. P.4912.ACH. Courtesy of Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
ISBN 978-90-8890-565-0 (softcover)
ISBN 978-90-8890-566-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-90-8890-567-4 (PDF e-book)
CONTENTS
List of figures and table
7
Biographies
15
Preface
Nicholas Thomas
17
1. Introduction: Fighting Fibres
Julie Adams
19
2. Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour
in UK Museums
Polly Bence
35
3. Te tanga: Contextualising the Kiribati Cuirass
Alison Clark
51
4. Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology of Kiribati Helmets
in UK Collections
Polly Bence
61
5. ‘Bob, a native of Tarawa, Kingsmill Group, Aged 18’
Alison Clark
75
6. Conserving Kiribati Armour
Rachel Howie
83
7. Kiribati Weaponry
Alison Clark and Rhian Ward
93
8. The Fibres That Connect Us: An Interview
Kaetaeta Watson, Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and Alison Clark
99
9. Provenance
Compiled by Kate Adams, Polly Bence, Alison Clark and Geoff Rubenstein
Edited by Colin Adams
107
10. Catalogue
141
Bibliography
195
Acknowledgements
201
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLE
Front
0.1
A buia at Bikenibeu, Tarawa 2016. Photo: Alison Clark.
Chapter 1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
1.10
1.11
Museum Day, Te Umwanibong Kiribati Culture Centre and Museum,
Bikenibeu, Tarawa, June 2017. Photo by Doug Ramsay, NIWA Taihoro
Nukurangi.
Portrait of a warrior wearing armour taken by Rev. George Herbert Eastman
O.B.E. c.1920s. P.4912.ACH1. Courtesy of Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
The Island Warrior display at the Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, April to September 2017. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Tarawa from a plane in 2016. Photo: Alison Clark.
Map of the Pacific highlighting the islands of Kiribati. © Mark Gunning,
courtesy of Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge.
Iacinta husking a coconut, Abemama, 2016. Photo: Alison Clark.
Old exhibition label from Montrose Museum. Photograph taken by Polly
Bence, 2017. Courtesy of ANGUSalive Museums.
Postcard printed with a photograph of a mannequin dressed in armour in
the Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich, Oc,B31.22. © Trustees of the British
Museum.
Illustration of a warrior wearing armour by Claire Thorne 2017. © Trustees
of the British Museum.
Portrait (photo) of Rev. George Herbert Eastman O.B.E. wearing armour
in 1923, CWM/LMS/Home/Missionary Portraits/Box 2. Council for World
Mission archive, SOAS Library.
London Missionary Society exhibition on the Wirral, Merseyside in 1957.
Courtesy of Aidan Eastman.
Chapter 2
Table 2.1 Armour found in UK museum collections. Compiled by Polly Bence, 2017.
2.1
Cuirass, 48/1943/1, 63.5cm (h). Tapitowaya (Tabiteuea). Collected by Dr
J.G. McNaughton c.1910s. Courtesy of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum
and Art Gallery, Exeter City Council.
2.2
Cuirass, A.1916.4, 69cm (h). Funafuti, Ellice Islands (Tuvalu). Collected by
Dr J.G. McNaughton c.1910s. © National Museums Scotland.
7
Fighting Fibres
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
2.14
2.15
8
Overalls, Ln; 2107.1, 128cm (l). Marquesas Islands. Collected by William
Garnham Luard and donated in 1837. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. Courtesy
of Saffron Walden Museum.
Overalls, WHITM:ETH419, 133cm (l). New Zealand. Donated by Mrs Scott
in 1838. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. Courtesy of Whitby Museum.
Cuirass, A.1899.251, 108cm approx (h). Solomon Islands. Bought from
Distington Museum, Whitehaven in 1899, from the collection of Joseph
Ritson Wallace. © National Museums Scotland.
Cuirass, M1980.4987, 71cm (h). South Sea Islands. Presented by Alexander
Cruickshank Esq in 1842. Photo: John Johnston, 2017. Courtesy of
ANGUSalive Museums.
Cuirass, GLAHM:E.462. Gilbert Islands. Collected and donated by Rev.
George Turner c.1840-1860. © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2017.
Porcupine fish helmet, Oc1975,Loan01.84, 37cm (h). Beru, Gilbert Islands.
Presented to HRH Prince Philip in 1959, Royal Collection Trust (no. 74039).
Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.
Cuirass, Oc1975, Loan01.98, 82cm (h). Beru, Gilbert Islands. Presented
to HRH Prince Philip in 1959, Royal Collection Trust (no. 74052). Royal
Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.
Feather detail on overalls A.1966.12.b, Micronesia. Transferred from the
Tower Armouries in 1966. Purchased from William Downing Webster
before 1895. Photo: Polly Bence, 2017. Reproduced Courtesy of Glasgow
Museums.
Cuirass with shells, BOLMG:1890.14b.11(b), 52cm (h) torso. Kingsmill
Islands. Bought from auctioneers Capes, Dunn & Pilcher in 1890 from the
collection of George C. Yates. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. © Bolton Library
and Museum Services.
Watercolour on Paper, Warrior of Nukunau by John Webster 1851, PD1966-16. Courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga
Hira.
Upper body armour, NEWHM C574, 158cm (w). Fiji. Collected by Juliana
Boyd in 1891. © Photo: Andrew Agate, 2017. Great North Museum.
Overalls, NEWHM C574, 163.4cm (l). Fiji. Collected by Juliana Boyd in
1891. © Photo: Andrew Agate, 2017. Great North Museum.
Cuirass, 1918A17.10, 80cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Collected by the
Chamberlain brothers c.1877-1899 and donated by Captain Norman
Chamberlain in 1918. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. Courtesy of Birmingham
Museum and Art Gallery.
List of figures and table
Chapter 3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
3.10
3.11
3.12
Coconut fibre cuirass with struts and decorated with human hair, Z
7034.1, 102cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Collected by Sir Arthur Gordon, mid19th century. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017 © Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Te tanga on display at Te Umwanibong Kiribati Culture Centre and
Museum, Bikenibeu, Tarawa. © Alison Clark, 2017.
Coconut fibre cuirass with struts and human hair decoration, no number.
Acquisition details unknown. © Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service.
Coconut fibre cuirass, Oc1894,-.218, 77cm (h). Arorae, Gilbert Islands.
Collected by Captain Davis in 1892. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Coconut fibre cuirass with minimal decoration, 2011.93.1, 71cm (h).
Tabiteuea, Kingsmill Islands. Donated by Evert Jan Brill before 1871. Photo:
Josh Murfitt, 2017 © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University
of Cambridge.
Coconut fibre tunic, NEWHM C732, 62cm (h). Tongatoboo (Tongatapu,
Tonga). Collected by Lancelot Iredale and donated in 1841. © Great North
Museum.
Close up of the tassel on a coconut fibre cuirass with minimal decoration.
2011.93.1. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017 © Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Coconut fibre cuirass decorated with human hair, NCM 1987-1490, 100cm
(h). Gilbert Islands. Donated by Mr Wellington Thompson in 1952.
© Nottingham City Museum.
Coconut fibre cuirass decorated with shells, 1884.31.36, 70cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Rev. Samuel Whitmee c.1870. Photo: Josh Murfitt,
2017 © Pitt Rivers Museum.
Coconut fibre cuirass with ray skin frontage, Oc1904,0621.29, 70cm (h).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Captain Davis in 1892. © Trustees of the
British Museum.
Isabella Levet wearing the new armour (Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge 2017.14.1-3, and 2017.15). Photo:
Lizzy Leckie, 2016.
Bauro Kairaoi wearing the new armour (Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge 2017.14.1-3). Photo: Lizzy Leckie,
2016.
Chapter 4
4.1
4.2
Coconut fibre helmet, E 1902.427 75cm (cir). Kingsmill Islands. Donated by
Arthur Rutter in 1903. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017 © Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Coconut fibre helmet with top knot, TRURI:1500.450.1, 17cm (h).
Acquisition details unknown. Reproduced with the kind permission of the
Royal Institution of Cornwall. Photo: Mike Searle, June 2017.
9
Fighting Fibres
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7a-b
4.8
4.9
4.10
4.11
Coconut fibre helmet with human hair, 9/1945/37, 28.4cm (h). Collected
and donated by Richard Waterfield in 1945. Photo: Peter Stephens. Courtesy
of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter City Council.
Coconut fibre helmet with tropic bird feathers, Oc.8045, 54cm (h approx).
Gilbert Islands. Purchased from Mr King (Rev. Joseph King) in 1873.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Porcupine fish helmet, Oc1887,0201.54, 37.5cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Collected by John Gould Veitch and donated by Harry Veitch in 1887.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Porcupine fish helmet with pandanus leaf lining, 0.8102, 42cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Gift of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1951. Courtesy
of Manchester Museum. © The University of Manchester.
Porcupine fish helmet with hair plume, 30.12.50/8, 36cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Donation from the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1951.
Photo: Dani Tagen, 2017. © Horniman Museum and Gardens.
Illustration of a Kingsmill warrior, ‘Bob’ and surrounding helmets in James
Edge Partington’s ‘An album of the weapons, tools, ornaments, articles of
dress of the natives of the Pacific Islands’ 1890. © Trustees of the British
Museum.
Hood made of knotted coconut fibre, Oc1980,Q.954, 41cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Acquisition details unknown, but in the Museum before 1900.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Hood made of knotted coconut fibre, Oc1980,Q.955, 57cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Acquisition details unknown, but in the Museum before 1900.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Te Tia Kawakin (the guardian/protector) Kiribati Eco-Warrior helmet made
by Chris Charteris in 2017 of recycled motorcycle helmet, turret shells
(Maoricolpus roseus), liquid nails and reed lining, P972. Photo by Lizzy
Leckie, 2017. © Chris Charteris.
Chapter 5
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
10
Carte de visite of Bob. Photo: Adamo Pedroletti. 1871-72. Oc,A3.63.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Bob wearing Kiribati armour. Unknown photographer. OcB31.26.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Cuirass, Oc.1973, 77cm (h). Kingsmill Islands. Transferred from the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1866. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Portrait of Charles Wood in Rotuma. Unknown photographer. 1869-72.
Courtesy and copyright Georgina Connaughton.
Profile of Bob. Unknown photographer. Oc.B96.28. © Trustees of the British
Museum.
Portraits of Pacific Islanders in a page from one of Charles Wood’s
photographic albums. Unknown photographer. Courtesy and copyright
Georgina Connaughton.
List of figures and table
Chapter 6
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8
6.9
6.10
6.11
6.12
6.13
6.14
6.15
6.16
Armour on mannequin (Z 7034.1) and (Z 7034.2-3), upper body armour,
156cm (w) and overalls, 165cm (l). Porcupine fish helmet (2011.93.3), 24cm
(h), Tabiteuea, Kingsmill Islands. Donated by Evert Jan Brill before 1871.
Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge.
SEM image of coconut fibre on the cuirass Z 7034.1. Photo: Catherine
Kneale and Dr Trish Biers. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge.
Microscopy image of coconut fibre on the cuirass Z 7034.1. Photo: Dr
Jennifer Bates. © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
University of Cambridge.
SEM of human hair on the cuirass Z 7034.1. Photo: Catherine Kneale
and Dr Trish Biers. © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
University of Cambridge.
Microscopy of human hair on the cuirass Z 7034.1. Photo: Dr Jennifer
Bates. © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of
Cambridge.
Weave on overalls, Z 7034.3. Photo: Rachel Howie. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Weave on upper body armour, Z 7034.2. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Weave changes on overalls, Oc.8043. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Illustration of two warriors on Tabiteuea, from the United States Exploring
Expedition by Alfred Agate in 1841. © Smithsonian Institution.
Overalls Z 7034.3 being conserved. Photo: Rachel Howie.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Binding hair on Z 7034.1 before conservation. Photo: Rachel Howie.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Binding hair on Z 7034.1 after conservation. Photo: Rachel Howie.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Back of cuirass with discolouration Z 7034.1. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Sand on porcupine fish helmet 2011.93.3, 24cm (h). Tabiteuea, Kingsmill
Islands. Donated by Evert Jan Brill before 1871. Photo: Rachel Howie.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Porcupine fish helmet, 2011.93.3, before conservation. Photo: Rachel Howie.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Porcupine fish helmet, 2011.93.3, after conservation. Photo: Josh Murfitt,
2017. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
11
Fighting Fibres
Chapter 7
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
7.7
7.8-7.9
Shark tooth dagger, E 1904.48 (Z 7052), 36cm (l). Purchased from Gerrard
and Sons from the collection of Captain Davis. Photo: Gwil Owen.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Palm wood club, 2008.26, 82cm (l). Donated by Irene Beasley. Harry
Beasley purchased it from Gerrard and Sons, from the collection of Captain
Davis. Photo: Gwil Owen. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge.
Shark tooth dagger, 2016.170, 34cm (l). Purchased by Alison Clark from
Kiribati in 2016 as part of a Crowther Benyon grant. Photo: Josh Murfitt.
2017. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
Shark tooth branched spear or trident, E 1907.603, 117cm (l) Purchased
with a donation from Professor Bevan. Photo: Josh Murfitt. 2017.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Shark’s teeth on E 1907.603. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Shark’s teeth on E 1907.603. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
SEM of human hair on E 1907.603. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Unravelling human hair and after conservation on E 1907.603. Photo:
Rhian Ward. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
Chapter 8
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6
12
Kaetaeta Watson, Fuli Pereira and Chris Charteris studying the armour at
Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira. Photo: Lizzy Leckie,
2016.
Kaetaeta Watson and Lizzy Leckie making the overalls 2017.14.2. Photo:
John Watson, 2016.
Chris Charteris demonstrating the netting knot. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Lizzy Leckie demonstrating using the bone needle to make a cuirass.
Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge.
Suit of armour, Kautan Rabakau (to awaken), made of manila rope, nylon
netting string (dyed brown). Cuirass 2017.14.1, 86cm (h), overalls 2017.14.2,
59cm (l), upper body armour 2017.14.3, 135cm (w) and porcupine fish
helmet 2017.15, 27cm (h). All made by Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and
Kaetaeta Watson, 2016-2017. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Kiribati warrior t-shirt, 2016.166, designed by Barane Iererita. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
List of figures and table
Chapter 9
9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
9.5
9.6
9.7
9.8
9.9
9.10
9.11
9.12
9.13
9.14
9.15
9.16
9.17
An I-Kiribati man wearing armour made by Tebeioo, 1892. Photo from the
voyage of HMS Royalist. Copyright Fiji Museum.
Lizzy Leckie, Alison Clark and Chris Charteris, 2017. Photo by Josh Murfitt.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Admiral Edward Davis. Courtesy of Bexhill Museum.
Portrait of Joseph Barnard Davis. Lithograph by R.J. Lane. © Wellcome
Library, London.
Rev. George Herbert Eastman O.B.E. and his wife Winifred Eastman from a
LMS exhibition in 1957. Courtesy of Aidan Eastman.
Sir Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon, unknown photographer, albumen
carte de visite, early 1860s. Ax9573. © National Portrait Gallery, London.
Portrait of Rev. William Goward and his wife Emmaline Goward c.1916,
CWM/LMS/Home/Missionary Portraits/Box 2. Council for World Mission
archive, SOAS Library.
Sir Arthur Grimble, K.C.M.G. © BBC Photo Library.
Portrait of Rev. John Joseph Knight Hutchin, CWM/LMS/Home/Missionary
Portraits/Box 2. Council for World Mission archive, SOAS Library.
Sir Everard im Thurn by Walter Stoneman, bromide print, 1918. x168522.
© National Portrait Gallery, London.
Portrait of Rev. Joseph King and his wife Miriam King in 1922, CWM/LMS/
Home/Missionary Portraits/Box 3. Council for World Mission archive,
SOAS Library.
Photograph of a group of people performing a dance and carrying HRH
Prince Philip in Bairiki on Tarawa, Kiribati in 1959 by Tony Atkinson.
Gelatin silver print. Oc,A11.11. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Portrait of Rev. George Turner seated c. 1860s, CWM/LMS/Home/
Missionary Portraits/Box 6. Council for World Mission archive, SOAS
Library.
Portrait of John Gould Veitch. JG2CNH. © Paul Fearn/Alamy Stock Photo.
Joseph Ritson Wallace c.1880s by George Patterson, MNX3598359.
© Manx National Heritage (Isle of Man)/Bridgeman Images.
Kaetaeta Watson demonstrating the process of making coconut fibre string,
Cambridge, 2016. Photograph by Josh Murfitt.
Portrait of Rev. Samuel Whitmee c.1871, CWM/LMS/Home/Missionary
Portraits/Box 6. Council for World Mission archive, SOAS Library.
13
BIOGRAPHIES
Editors
Julie Adams is Curator of the Oceania collections at the British Museum. For the last
decade she has curated, researched and written on the histories of Pacific collections
in European museums. From 2011 to 2015, she was Senior Research Fellow at the
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge and was editor of Artefacts
of Encounter: Cook’s Voyages, Colonial Collecting and Museum Histories published by
Otago University Press in 2016.
Polly Bence has worked in the curatorial team in the Oceanic section of the Department
of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum since 2011. Over the last
five years as the Project Curator, Oceanic collections, she has been preparing the
collection for a move into the World Conservation and Exhibition Centre. During this
time she has also collaborated on the European Research Council (ERC) funded Pacific
Presences project. She has also worked at National Museums Scotland (2010-11) on the
Royal Museum Project permanent re-display.
Alison Clark is a Research Associate at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge. She currently works on the ERC funded Pacific Presences
project. Both her MA (2007) and PhD (2013) focused on the Indigenous Australian
collections at the British Museum. Her current research is focused on Kiribati, where
she is interested in the contemporary resonance of historic museum collections, and
the revival of certain cultural practices. She has previously worked on projects at the
British Museum, and the October Gallery in London.
Contributors
Colin Adams has an MA in history from the University of East Anglia. For many years,
he was a journalist and worked for the BBC.
Kate Adams is an independent researcher with interests in history and politics.
Rachel Howie currently works as a Conservator at the British Museum on its Africa,
Oceania and Americas collection move. She previously worked at the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) in Cambridge on its active loans and display
programme. This included a two-month research and conservation project of Kiribati
armour that went on display at MAA in the exhibition The Island Warrior in 2017.
She trained at Durham University in the MA Conservation of Archaeological and
Museum Objects. She has a special interest in organic materials in particular basketry
and feathers.
15
Fighting Fibres
Geoff Rubenstein is a volunteer research assistant with the Oceanic section at the
British Museum. He has worked on a variety of projects including the Arts and
Humanities Research Council Melanesian Art Project (2005-2010).
Rhian Ward completed a Master’s degree in the Conservation of Archaeological and
Museum Objects at Durham University. Between 2016 and 2017 she worked as a
conservation volunteer with the University of Cambridge Museums, during which time
she first came across ethnographic objects from Kiribati. She researched and conserved
a Kiribati shark tooth trident at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
Cambridge.
16
PREFACE
From 2013-2018, the European Research Council-funded Pacific Presences: Oceanic art
and European museums ran an ambitious project that explored the extensive collections
of art and artefacts from the Pacific region which are cared for in ethnography and
world cultures museums across Europe, from Spain to Russia. The team reconsidered
famous works of Oceanic art, but put more energy into research of little-known,
sometimes vast collections in storage. In particular, they made connections across
collections, reconstructing the histories of particular art forms and their contexts, and
investigating collections made by particular travellers and fieldworkers, which have in
many cases been dispersed across institutions.
The project was empowered, above all, by dialogue with Pacific Islanders. We have
had extraordinarily rewarding engagements with scholars, curators, artists, elders and
community members from Pacific nations and diasporas – many of whom have joined the
project for periods as affiliated scholars and visitors. They have undertaken study visits
with us, they have contributed joint presentations to conferences, they have produced
works of art, some acquired by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in
Cambridge where the project was based, and they have written or co-written for various
project publications. Pacific Presences not only enlarges understandings of Oceanic art
history and Oceanic collections in important ways, but it also enables new reflections
upon museums and ways of undertaking work in and around them. It exemplifies a
growing commitment on the part of curators and researchers not merely to consult, but
to initiate and undertake research, conservation, acquisition, exhibition, outreach and
publication projects collaboratively and responsively.
Fighting Fibres exemplifies the interest of the Pacific Presences project in sustained
inquiry into particular genres, deeper understanding of their representation across
museum collections, the material constitution of the artefacts, the variety of interests
in them over time, and in particular the scope for reactivating them in the present. The
coconut fibre armour and associated porcupine fish helmets and shark tooth weapons of
Kiribati excited the interest of Europeans from the period of early cross-cultural contact
onward, and suits were collected extensively for northern hemisphere museums. But the
arresting and distinctive forms have not therefore become less important for I-Kiribati,
the people of Kiribati; they loom large among symbols of the community and in popular
culture in the Islands today. This book addresses long-standing historical questions about
the armour; it offers a census of examples in one country; it explores the material makeup of the forms; it engages in dialogue with artists; and documents a remarkable moment
of recreation, the making of the first new suit of armour in many decades. Fighting Fibres
reports research, community engagement and art practice. But the book, published open
access, is not intended to mark the end of a project, but to provide a resource for all those
interested in extending inquiry and practice – for the future.
Nicholas Thomas
17
Figure 0.1 A buia at Bikenibeu, Tarawa 2016. Photograph by Alison Clark.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
JULIE ADAMS
Suits of armour made from coconut fibre on the Islands of Kiribati are recognised as
some of the most iconic items of Oceanic material culture. Although their use to protect
warriors in battle has long ago come to an end, and the knowledge required to create
them has diminished, coconut fibre armour has not been consigned to a forgotten
past. Two suits survive in the Islands, both of which are housed in Te Umwanibong
the Kiribati Culture Centre and Museum on Tarawa. These were created by Tebeioo,
the last known maker of traditional armour, on the island of Beru in the 1950s. Today,
as part of the annual Museum Day celebrations, Tebeioo’s suits are removed from the
Museum and worn by a young ‘warrior’ (Figure 1.1). There is a renewed interest in
armour and the skills involved in its production; indeed the image of a warrior wearing
Figure 1.1. Museum Day, Te Umwanibong Kiribati Culture Centre and Museum, Bikenibeu,
Tarawa, June 2017. Photo: Doug Ramsay, NIWA Taihoro Nukurangi.
19
Fighting Fibres
armour has become a national symbol appearing on t-shirts, printed cotton sarongs
as well as a plethora of items made for tourists. On Fanning Island, one of the Line
Group, Islanders dress up in ‘armour-like’ costumes and hold shark’s teeth weapons
to pose for photographs with passengers from the many cruise ships that call in there.
The armour’s transformation from a relic of a bygone era to a symbol of national and
cultural pride marks the latest phase in the history of these extraordinary garments.
Coconut fibre armour is as intriguing as it is visually compelling, with its intricate
fibre construction and adornments of human hair, shell and feathers. In addition to the
armour, warriors traditionally wore a helmet made of either coconut fibre or the skin of a
porcupine fish. This combination gives the whole ensemble an even more extraordinary
and dramatic appearance (Figure 1.2). In 2013, when work began on Pacific Presences:
Oceanic Art and European Museums, a major research project based at the Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge (MAA), the team were struck by the
frequent inclusion of suits of coconut fibre armour in exhibitions about the Pacific in UK
museums. Indeed, of the 23 institutions that our research identified as having coconut
fibre armour in their collections, eleven currently have examples on permanent display.
Encountering these suits today, in museum stores or on display in an exhibition,
raises some fundamental questions: how were they made? How were they worn? Were
some Islanders making suits of armour for sale to European collectors, as has often been
asserted? If not, how can we account for the large numbers of suits now found in the UK
and in institutions across Europe? What were the specific histories and encounters that
brought about this mass migration of coconut fibre armour from Oceania to Europe?
Figure 1.2. Portrait of a warrior
wearing armour taken by
Rev. George Herbert Eastman
O.B.E. c.1920s. P.4912.ach1.
© Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
20
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
Against this background, it was decided to make Kiribati armour a key area of research
for the Pacific Presences project. Researchers in Cambridge contacted colleagues at the
British Museum (BM), the institution that holds the largest collection of armour in the
UK, and a shared passion was forged for these finely constructed garments, and the
Islands from which they originate. Through fieldwork carried out by Alison Clark in
Kiribati in 2016 and 2017, the research expanded to include the voices of people from
the Pacific. While in the Islands, Clark discussed armour, sharing images of pieces held
in UK museums, with local people. Upon her return, these discussions continued via
email and Facebook. The opportunity to host visiting researchers from Kiribati, as well
as members of the UK’s Kiribati Tungaru Association, in Cambridge and at the BM,
also proved crucial. In particular, Clark’s work with I-Kiribati and New Zealand artists
Kaetaeta Watson, Chris Charteris and Lizzy Leckie took the project in exciting and
unforeseen directions, leading eventually to the creation of a new suit of Kiribati armour,
the first to be made in over 50 years (see Chapter 8). The display of this armour, alongside
a historic suit from the Cambridge collections, in the exhibition The Island Warrior,
curated by Clark at the MAA, was a significant outcome of our research (Figure 1.3).
To coincide with the exhibition’s opening, a workshop was organised that brought
together museum curators, researchers and conservators, as well as artists Watson,
Charteris and Leckie, for a day devoted to coconut fibre armour. We were convinced of
the benefits of adopting a multi-disciplinary, polyvocal approach. Specifically, we were
keen to continue the dialogue that Clark had established in her exhibition between
historic pieces of armour (now held almost exclusively in museum collections) and
Figure 1.3. The Island Warrior
display at the Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, April to
September 2017. Photo: Josh Murfitt,
2017 © Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
21
Fighting Fibres
people interested in researching, reimagining and creating armour in the present. We
hoped that by paying close attention to the armour from the past we might animate
these contemporary discussions. The workshop incorporated talks and presentations
from curators and conservators, an interview with Watson, Charteris and Leckie about
their practice and their research, followed by an afternoon session where everyone
experienced the handling of coconut fibre and attempted to master some of the
basic techniques that went into making the armour. The workshop’s experiential and
inclusive approach epitomises the spirit of the wider Pacific Presences project, which
has foregrounded the bringing together of people and objects to share knowledge,
ideas and stories. Within the pages of this book, we have endeavoured to replicate
the collaborative and multidisciplinary approach we adopted at the workshop. Thus,
alongside the research team’s contributions, there are essays from conservators (see
Chapters 6 and 7), who have experience of working with armour, and an interview with
the artists focusing on their experiments with coconut fibre.
Almost four years after the aims of this project were established, these
multidisciplinary conversations continue. This book is the latest embodiment of our
research but we do not imagine it to be comprehensive or conclusive. Rather, we hope it
will serve as a catalyst for further investigations, research and the sharing of knowledge
between people in Kiribati, its diasporic communities and museums in the UK (and
beyond) that care for suits of coconut fibre armour today.
Kiribati
The Independent Republic of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas) is an archipelago of atolls
dispersed over a vast area of the Pacific Ocean (Figure 1.4). It is thought the Islands
were settled sometime between 3000 BC and AD 1300 (Sabatier 1977). The Republic
encompasses the Gilbert Islands, the Line Islands, the Phoenix Islands and Banaba
Figure 1.4.
Tarawa from a
plane in 2016.
Photo: Alison
Clark.
22
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
Figure 1.5. Map of the Pacific highlighting the islands of Kiribati. © Mark Gunning, courtesy of Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge.
23
Fighting Fibres
Figure 1.6. Iacinta husking a coconut,
Abemama, 2016. Photo: Alison Clark.
(Ocean Island), and these 33 islands are spread across an area of more than 3,000 miles
of sea (Figure 1.5). The majority are low-lying coral atolls, with Banaba – a raised coral
island – being the exception. The atolls are narrow strips of land, fringed by white sandy
beaches and turquoise lagoons. Because of the soil’s highly-salinated and calcareous
nature, only the most hardy vegetation can survive. Inland from the beaches, forests
of coconut palms, pandanus and breadfruit trees thrive. Islanders traditionally relied
on these resources, along with fishing, catching birds and the cultivating of a tuber
called babai. I-Kiribati people are skilled at making the most of the restricted resources
available to them. Indeed, resourcefulness is considered a part of the national character,
with nothing being allowed to go to waste. Despite the challenges of surviving in this
harsh environment, the Islands are among the most populated areas of Oceania. The
capital, Tarawa, has become particularly densely inhabited, with almost half of the total
population of 112,000 living there (Camus 2014). I-Kiribati people are renowned for
being “incredibly welcoming, full of humour and laughter, positive and joyful about
life” (Burns et al. 2017).
Kiribati culture is evidence of Islanders’ evolved and sophisticated adaptation to
their environment. Their maneaba, or communal buildings, are among the largest
structures built anywhere in Oceania, while their ocean-going outrigger sailing canoes
are renowned for their speed. Women weave beautiful sleeping mats, made using
strips of fine pandanus, and both men and women participate in dancing, which is
a national pastime, and a way of sharing stories across generations. In a situation of
24
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
Figure 1.7. Old exhibition label from Montrose Museum. Photo: Polly Bence, 2017. Courtesy
of ANGUSalive Museums.
scarcity, maximum use is made of every material. Coconut trees, for example, provide
food and oil, timber for canoes and houses, leaves for making mats, baskets and other
containers and, crucially, coconut fibre was used to create string, which was essential
in many aspects of everyday life (Figure 1.6). Coconut fibre string (known as te kora)
also formed the key component in the making of armour. Today, the knowledge of how
to make this string, once such an integral part of Kiribati life, is dwindling.
Although the suits of armour made on Kiribati do not originate anywhere else in
the Pacific, there are some parallels to be found in other Oceanic contexts. On Atiu, in
the Cook Islands, helmets made from coconut fibre were worn by warriors to protect
them from the use of sling stones in battle (Buck 1944). Indeed, their similarity to
the helmets made in Kiribati has frequently led to Atiu helmets being erroneously
catalogued, and even displayed as being from Kiribati, in museums. A coconut fibre
cap or helmet is also found in headdresses from other Islands in the Cooks, and in
the Australs. In addition, items that have an affinity with Kiribati armour have been
documented in Samoa, Fiji, Tuvalu and Nauru, but it is possible that these pieces were
actually made by people from Kiribati who were living in those Islands at the time.
The provenancing of coconut fibre armour is problematic because the group
of Islands known today as the Republic of Kiribati have undergone a seemingly
relentless process of naming and re-naming since contact with Europeans began.
The name Kiribati has been used since gaining independence from Britain in 1979.
Prior to this, the formal connection with Tuvalu (the Ellice Islands), which had been
administered jointly by the British as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands since 1892, came to
an end. Following independence, both Kiribati and Tuvalu remained members of the
25
Fighting Fibres
Commonwealth of Nations. Before 1979, the term the Gilberts was used to describe the
archipelago of 16 islands (excluding the Line, Phoenix and Banaba Islands) and, earlier
still, the term Kingsmill Islands or Kingsmill Group was also used. Today, Islanders use
the name Tungaru to distinguish the former Gilbert Islands from the newly incorporated
Line, Phoenix and Banaba Islands. This constant layering and over-layering of names
is one of the main challenges to working with museum collections from this region (see
Bence, Chapter 2). Objects are generally catalogued using the location from which they
originate, as it is defined at the time of registration in a museum. Many of the oldest
collections identify objects only as ‘South Sea Islands’, while others retain their Gilbert
Islands or Kingsmill Islands identity (Figure 1.7). Many ‘Kiribati’ collections also
contain objects from Tuvalu (and vice versa), as a result of their long and intertwined
relationship. Faced with this complex history, in this book we have tried to disentangle
the specific biographies of particular pieces by working with museum documentation,
using it to connect armour to an historic period. However, when referring to the
Islands more generally, we use the contemporary term: Kiribati.
A ‘war-like’ people?
From the earliest accounts of European voyages, descriptions of the people of Kiribati
have focused on their ‘war-like’ nature. The German anthropologist, Gerd Koch, was
still perpetuating this stereotype in his study of their material culture published in
1986. Based on fieldwork undertaken in the 1960s, Koch writes that the “war-like
I-Kiribati are very ready to enter upon a feud for a trifling reason” (1986: 245). This
statement seems at odds with the fact that extensive missionising from both Europe
and North America, as well as the long-standing colonial presence in the Islands, had
led to the cessation of warfare almost 100 years earlier. Another frequently perpetuated
narrative is that the armour could not have been developed independently of outside
influences, but instead must have been introduced by Europeans or, alternatively, by
the Japanese whose samurai warriors had their own distinctive armour. These two
ubiquitous narratives – of a ‘war-like’ people who could not have developed the
sophisticated armour they wore in battle – serve to promote an idea of Islanders as
‘savage’ as well as to demean their creative capabilities. Instead, it could be argued that
if I-Kiribati were a people whose ‘principal employment’ was war – as a member of the
United States Exploring Expedition claimed in the 1840s – it is surely plausible that
they could have developed a highly-sophisticated range of items of material culture
reflecting this (Wilkes 1845: 50).
It is clear from historical accounts that pressure on land and resources frequently
resulted in disputes, some of which were addressed through combat (Koch, 1986).
Combat could take the form of one-on-one, highly-ritualised encounters, conducted
according to strict rules, where those involved took it in turns to inflict wounds on
each other, using shark tooth weapons. Alternatively, it could involve large-scale
battles between clans and even entire islands, where only the leaders would have worn
the full range of armour. In either situation, the aim of the fighting was not to kill
one’s opponent but rather to inflict wounds. Anthropologist Katharine Luomala, who
worked in the islands in the 1940s, noted that “the intent was to wound and not to slay;
a slayer was regarded as a murderer and had to pay compensation in land” (1954: 22),
26
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
Figure 1.8. Postcard printed with a
photograph of a mannequin dressed
in armour in the Museum Fünf
Kontinente, Munich, Oc,B31.22.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
thus reinforcing the connection between land as a precious resource and the sphere
of combat, punishment and retribution that surrounded disputes about it. On the
island of Tabiteuea, Luomala described the various rites of passage undertaken by
boys (roronga) in order to become men. This important period of their lives resulted
in their achieving the designation of rorobuaka, or warrior, and receiving their first
weapon (1978: 221). The roles of masculinity and warrior are fused in the notion of
rorobuaka, as if to emphasise their essential inseparability. As a result, it seems likely
that most, if not all, men would have owned armour as all were expected to be prepared
to participate in the rituals of conflict. During one-on-one conflicts, a warrior was
likely to have been assisted by an attendant, who could help him to his feet if he fell,
or quickly re-arm him if his weapon was knocked from his grasp. Evidence that such
an assistant would have been required is provided by a complete suit of armour in the
collections of Munich’s Museum Fünf Kontinente where, in addition to the standard
set of accoutrements, there is a piece which rises up to cover the warrior’s entire head
and face, leaving only a small gap to allow him to see out (Figure 1.8). With this limited
visibility, the assistant would have been a second pair of eyes in combat.
The suits of coconut fibre armour found in museum collections around the UK
form the focus of this book. They represent a complex assemblage of garments aimed at
offering protection from the blows of an opponent’s shark tooth weapon to every part of a
warrior’s body. Both men and women contributed to the creation of armour, with women
producing te kora, the coconut fibre string, which is the basis of the major components.
The integral parts of the armour, illustrated here (Figure 1.9), consist of: a suit of overall-
27
Fighting Fibres
Figure 1.9. Illustration of a warrior
wearing armour by Claire Thorne,
2017. © Trustees of the British
Museum.
b
a
c
e
f
g
i
d
h
Key for illustration of armour (te otanga)
The figure wears:
a. A porcupine fish helmet (te barantauti)
b. A cuirass with headguard (te tanga)
c. Shoulder armour
d. Overalls (te otanga)
e. Upper body armour (te tuta)
f. Forearm guard
g. Coconut fibre gauntlet (te bana)
h. Gauntlet with shark’s teeth
i. A porcupine ray skin waistband (te katibana)
28
Other items of armour, clockwise from the top:
Detail of coconut fibre gauntlet (te bana)
Detail of shark’s teeth gauntlet
Porcupine ray skin waistband (te katibana)
Coconut fibre waistband (te katibana)
Trident shark’s teeth weapon
Detail of weapon
Coconut fibre helmet (te baratekora)
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
style trousers, which come up over the chest and fix over the shoulders with two straps;
body armour, which covers the upper torso and arms, made using the same technique
and worn on top of the overalls; and a cuirass, or sturdy piece of body armour. In a
European context a cuirass is a breastplate and backplate that fix together to provide
protection to the torso. In Kiribati, the cuirass generally also has a high headguard that
protects the warrior from blows or projectiles being thrown from behind, by his own
supporters towards the enemy. Additional shoulder protection is provided in the form
of sections of closely-twined coconut fibre, made in the same way as the cuirass, and
strapped over each shoulder. Forearm guards, consisting of shark’s teeth fixed to wooden
struts, served as protection and could themselves be used offensively in close combat. In
addition, coconut fibre gauntlets covered the vulnerable area of the top of the hands. A
waist band of either coconut fibre, or made from the skin of a ray, could be worn as an
extra layer of protection around the middle. The final element is a helmet made either
from coconut fibre or from the skin of a porcupine fish.
Although museum displays often depict a warrior mannequin dressed in the full
ensemble (such as the Munich example), historical accounts and descriptions from
early European encounters suggest that not every warrior wore all of these components
at once (Wilkes, 1845).
Encounters with Europeans: voyaging to independence
Although it took until the first part of the nineteenth century for all of the Gilbert
Islands to be visited by Europeans, the earliest sightings by Spanish and Portuguese
sailors date back to the sixteenth century. The first encounter occurred between
Europeans and Islanders when John Byron, commodore of HMS Dolphin, anchored
off Nikunau in 1765. This encounter, like many early meetings between Europeans
and Pacific Islanders, was marked by cultural confusion and misunderstanding. The
ship’s crew were frustrated that Islanders were unwilling to provide the supplies they
sought. Islanders, meanwhile, were only interested in gaining access to the coconuts
on board the ship (see Hawkesworth 1773). Following the establishment of Botany
Bay as a penal colony, convict ships began traversing the region. One of the first
convict ships was commanded by Thomas Gilbert, and it is because of this that the
archipelago was named the Gilbert Islands. Over time, European traders and merchant
ships began calling in at the Islands for labour and copra and, with the spread of the
whaling industry, this traffic steadily increased. Barrie Macdonald reports that, at its
peak in the 1840s, several of the Gilbert Islands were being visited weekly by whaling
vessels (1982:16). Accounts from this period often make mention of the distinctive
armour and weapons in circulation and express visitors’ awe and fascination with
their manufacture and fearsome appearance. By this time, trade between Islanders and
Europeans had become well-established, often taking place off-shore, with Islanders
paddling their canoes out to the ships in order to acquire goods such as iron, sharpedged tools, and tobacco, in return for supplies, sexual favours and ‘curios’ such as
shark’s teeth weapons and coconut fibre armour (Macdonald 1982: 17-19). Unlike in
other parts of the Pacific, where sailors were struck by the tattooed bodies of Islanders,
here it was their scars, inflicted by their weapons, that left a vivid impression in the
minds of visitors (Camus 2014: 56).
29
Fighting Fibres
Figure 1.10. 9 Portrait (photo) of
Rev. George Herbert Eastman O.B.E.
wearing armour in 1923, CWM/LMS/
Home/Missionary Portraits/Box 2.
Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. Council for
World Mission archive, SOAS Library.
Protestant missionaries began
arriving in 1857, followed by the
Catholics in 1888. Hiram Bingham of the
American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions was the first, followed
later by the London Missionary Society
(LMS), who made rapid progress in
the Islands in the south of the group.
Bingham and his wife, accompanied by
a native Hawaiian assistant, Kanoa and
his wife Kahola, established a mission
on Abaiang. Aged just 26 when he
arrived in the islands, Bingham offered
a damning assessment of local life,
which included his particular distaste at
“the sight of naked men, boys, girls and
more than half naked women” as well as his concern about the tradition of “bloody warfare”
(cited in Macdonald 1982: 33). Bingham’s mission struggled to make a significant impact
in its early years, with Islanders willingly accepting aspects of Christianity that seemed
advantageous to their lives, while rejecting those for which they could see no value. In the
Gilberts, as in many of the Pacific Islands, missionaries of all denominations focused on
bringing about a cessation of violence. Ironically, the competing endeavours of missionaries
from various denominations to convert Islanders often resulted in bitter rivalries that
reinforced long-standing feuds and divisions, and occasionally resulted in outbreaks of
violence and war. Following a series of bitter disputes and massacres in the 1880s, the Islands
were placed under the protectorate of the British Empire by Captain Edward Davis in 1892.
Missionary activity continued with many aspects of traditional life being discouraged on
the basis that they were considered antithetical to Christianity. Dancing and singing were
particular targets, as was coconut fibre armour, due to its association with combat. Many
pieces of armour, along with other items of ritual and spiritual significance, were either
destroyed or removed by missionaries. Despite their disapproval of armour, and all that
it represented, some missionaries were simultaneously impressed by its construction and
appearance. Our research has revealed that several LMS missionaries, while encouraging
the armour’s destruction, were actively retaining specimens of armour and selling or
donating them to museums back in Britain. One extraordinary illustration of this tension
between culling and collecting is a photographic portrait of Rev. George Herbert Eastman
O.B.E. dressed in a complete suit of armour, an image which is today held in the Mission’s
archives at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (Figure 1.10).
30
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
Figure 1.11. London Missionary Society exhibition on the Wirral, Merseyside in 1957.
Courtesy of Aidan Eastman.
Following annexation of the Islands by Captain Davis in 1892, the Gilberts were
gradually “drawn into the folds of Empire” (Macdonald 1982: v). Colonial officials and
commissioners exerted a growing influence over the Islands’ affairs even though many
of them governed from afar, basing themselves elsewhere, such as Fiji. At the turn
of the twentieth century, rich phosphate deposits were discovered on Banaba (Ocean
Island), the subsequent mining of which caused immense environmental destruction
and resulted in the British authorities relocating most of the population to Rabi island,
in Fiji. The significance of phosphate (which is a key component in fertilizers) cannot
be overestimated: “there can be no civilization without population, no population
without food, no food without phosphate” (Albert Ellis, 1942, cited in Teaiwa 2015).
Several of the key colonial figures and collectors of coconut fibre armour, such as
Arthur Gordon and Arthur Grimble, were also key figures in the phosphate industry.
During World War II, the Japanese occupied Butaritari, Tarawa and Abemama and
the Islands were the scene of several major battles including, in November 1943, the
Battle of Tarawa, which saw the destruction of “almost everything above ground level
on the islet of Betio” (Macdonald 1982: 143). After the War, with the establishment of
the United Nations and its commitment to the process of decolonization, combined
with the dwindling British colonial influence, Islanders began to play a greater role in
political affairs. In 1974, a referendum was held to determine whether the Ellice and
Gilbert Islands should each have their own administration and the process of separation
began the following year. On 12 July 1979, the Gilbert Islands gained independence
from Britain and were re-named the Republic of Kiribati.
31
Fighting Fibres
Surveying Kiribati armour
During the 1980s, museum curators such as Lissant Bolton, Jim Specht, Adrienne
Kaeppler, Peter Gathercole and Len Pole undertook inventories of Pacific collections
held in various museums (see for example Gathercole and Clarke 1979). However, this
important and time consuming work was overtaken by computerised catalogues, which
rendered the need to publish collection data in survey form redundant and allowed
museums to make their collections available on the internet. Despite online catalogues
apparently democratising knowledge and potentially making data universally available,
the process of trying to establish the whereabouts of coconut fibre armour in UK
museums, for example, remains a far from straightforward task. First, as a result of the
frequent changes in the Islands’ names, knowing what term to enter into a search engine
is a challenge and many smaller museums still use the term Gilbert Islands, or even the
Kingsmill Islands. Second, a researcher needs to have explored all the possible search
terms relating to how the armour has been described. These range from ‘coat of mail’
(see Figure 1.7), to ‘corselet’ or ‘trousers plaited from New Zealand flax’. It is, thus, very
easy to overlook items by not entering the appropriate terminology. Finally, for anyone
wishing to document collections of material culture held in the UK, an understanding of
the museum landscape and how networks of individual collectors and institutions have
interacted over time is a necessary prerequisite for knowing where to look and how to
make sense of what you find. As the late curator and Professor of Anthropology, Roger
Neich, reflected in an essay about compiling museum inventories: “collections are very
ephemeral; they come and go, are assembled and deconstructed all the time” (2005: 174).
In our early discussions about researching armour, the team were keen to get an
overview of the scale of UK collections: how many pieces were there and where were
they held? It quickly became clear, however, that our hope of a quick answer was not
possible. In response, BM curator Polly Bence took up the challenge and set about
devising a questionnaire designed to chart exactly what armour was where, sending
it out to every museum in the UK that holds Pacific collections. Four years later, we
are finally able to provide an answer to our original question and can report that we
discovered 189 pieces of coconut fibre armour from Kiribati, held in 23 institutions
around the United Kingdom (see Bence, Chapter 2). This book is structured around
the invaluable work carried out by Bence. Each of the 189 pieces of armour has been
documented and photographed and appears in the catalogue section at the end of
the book. For the first time, interested parties – both in Europe and in the Pacific
– can access this comprehensive study. It is possible, however, that additional pieces
of armour exist in private collections, including, for example, those belonging to the
descendants of missionaries who worked in the Pacific. This enticing possibility was
underlined by the grandson of Rev. George Herbert Eastman O.B.E., Aidan Eastman,
who shared with us a photograph from his grandfather which depicts the scene of
a London Missionary Society exhibition in the Wirral (northwest England) in 1957
(Figure 1.11). In the photograph a suit of armour is pictured alongside a humorously
apt sign, which asks: ‘Have You Got One of These in Your Home?’. This freighted
question has an important resonance for our survey team and we have no doubt that
more discoveries will be made in the future.
32
Introduction: Fighting Fibres
Our survey was, in part, inspired by recent research carried out by Adrienne Kaeppler,
Steven Hooper, Emmanuel Kasarhérou and the work of a number of projects based in
Cambridge, led by Nicholas Thomas. Several of their publications (see for example
Kaeppler’s Holophusicon: The Leverian Museum (2011) or Thomas et al. Artefacts of
Encounter (2016) feature fresh information, new insights and revisionary interpretations
of historic collections. Our own experience has confirmed that, far from going over
old ground, this kind of fine-grained, immersive, detective-like work can be hugely
rewarding. For example, we believe our survey challenges the notion that armour was
being made for sale to Europeans, as the overwhelming majority of pieces of body armour
examined show signs of wear and/or damage. While cuirasses exhibit less damage, this is
probably because of their sturdy nature. Maude and Maude note that Islanders avoided
the torso and instead targeted the vulnerable arms, legs, face and throat (1981: 317). In
other words, the cuirass acted as a deterrent as much as an effective protection from
blows. Other factors also influence our sense that armour was not, generally, being
made for sale: specifically, the influential role of missionaries and colonial officials who
were focused on pacifying the Islands and who simultaneously suppressed combat and
confiscated armour. If we combine those factors with the I-Kiribati tendency to dispose
of any item of material culture that has outlived its usefulness, then the mass exodus
of these iconic objects over a relatively compressed time period can be explained. The
armour’s rapid disappearance from the Islands also resulted in an inevitable diminishing
of the knowledge associated with making it. Gerd Koch described the secrecy with
which Kiribati families tended to guard traditional knowledge, even from each other
(1986: xvii), thus, as a consequence, once armour had fallen out of use, the skills relating
to its production were lost to future generations.
In addition to the work of surveying, this book includes short summaries of the
lives of many of those collectors who played a role in the acquisition and subsequent
donation of armour to UK museums (Chapter 9). Acknowledging that these men and
women represent only part of the story, we believe that understanding more about them
helps shed new light on the biographies of the objects themselves. This provenance
work reveals a vast network of collectors, dealers, curators and institutions through
whose hands these objects passed before entering the stewardship of UK museums.
For our part, the research team hope that this book can contribute to the resurgence of
interest in coconut fibre armour and assist Islanders living in Kiribati, as well as those
living in the diaspora, to establish new connections with these transplanted objects for
which UK museums have a duty of care.
33
CHAPTER 2
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut
Fibre Armour in UK Museums
POLLY BENCE
The survey
One of the main tasks of the collaboration between staff at the British Museum (BM)
and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (MAA) was to conduct
a survey into coconut fibre armour held in UK museum collections. After initial
discussions about the remit of what we were hoping to achieve, we established five key
research questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What armour had been collected?
Where was the armour held?
Who were the collectors and donors?
When was armour being collected?
What can we learn from such a survey?
Our first step was to create a list of all UK museums and institutions thought
to hold ethnographic material from the Pacific. To do this we consulted a number
of well-known historical surveys such as those carried out in the 1970s by Peter
Gathercole and Alison Clarke and, more recently by Len Pole (Gathercole and Clarke
1979; Kwasnik 1994; Pole 1995, 2000 and 2007; Schumann 1986; Starkey 1998). Our
final ‘hit list’ consisted of 175 institutions and, to make this daunting process more
manageable, we split the list into tiers based on the scale of their collections and their
geographic location. Beginning with those known to have large Pacific collections,
we asked colleagues to complete a short survey and supply us with details such as:
registration numbers, acquisition details, provenance, measurements, photographs
(where possible) and any other curatorial or archival information.
After three years of data-gathering, we were able to produce a comprehensive
collections survey – the findings of which can be seen in Table 2.1. This table shows
where armour is located, which types of armour were collected most frequently and
which pieces appeared to be rare or unusual. In total 189 pieces of armour have been
35
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh*
Nottingham City Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford*
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter*
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
Saffron Walden Museum
Whitby Museum*
World Museum, Liverpool*
1
3
1
1
1
7
49
1
7
4
5
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
3
2
2
5
2
5 2
5
2
5
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
7
3
1
5
3
1
1
2
1
2
47
1
6
11
2
1
4
1
2
5
1
1
1
1
8
9
4
1
2
1
6
41
4
1
1
1
2
1
1
4
2
1
9
4
2
12
1
29
2
5
1
32
4
2
3
1
20
189
1
2
5
32
1
16
11 2
1
6
1
3
Table 2.1. Armour found in UK museum collections. Compiled by Polly Bence, 2017.
identified in 23 museum collections across the UK. The largest collection is held in
the BM and consists of 47 pieces; followed by the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM), with 32
pieces and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, with 29 pieces.
Although it is not surprising that these museums have the largest numbers, given the
well-documented strengths of their Pacific collections, the survey also revealed some
unexpected findings, with armour being located in Bolton, Ipswich, Montrose and
Nottingham.
What has been collected?
The most frequently collected pieces of armour were cuirasses (53), followed by overalls/
trousers (43), other armour worn on the upper body (32) and porcupine fish helmets
(16). The prevalence of the cuirass and the porcupine fish helmet is probably a result of
their striking and distinctive appearance, which no doubt appealed to collectors. As for
the body armour, I believe their portability would have played a part in their collection,
1
6
total pieces of armour
samples of fibre
panel for overalls
1
1
1
1
1
8
1
* Armour on permanent display
36
shoulder piece
waistband
porcupine ray skin
waist band
forearm guard
gauntlet
hood
helmet made of
synthetic materials
helmet (coconut fibre)
helmet
(porcupine fish)
upper body armour
trousers
overalls
Museums
Bankfield Museum, Halifax
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Bolton Museum
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
British Museum
Dr Grierson's Museum, Thornhill
Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle*
Horniman Museum, London*
The Huntarian Museum, Glasgow*
Ipswich Museum
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum,
Glasgow*
Manchester Museum*
Montrose Museum, Angus
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
Cambridge*
tunic-style cuirass
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
cuirass
Fighting Fibres
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour in UK Museums
Figure 2.1. Cuirass, 48/1943/1, 63.5cm (h).
Tapitowaya (Tabiteuea). Collected by Dr
J.G. McNaughton c.1910s. Courtesy of the
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art
Gallery, Exeter City Council.
Figure 2.2. Cuirass, A.1916.4, 69cm (h). Funafuti,
Ellice Islands (Tuvalu). Collected by Dr J.G.
McNaughton c.1910s. © National Museums
Scotland.
because they are easily rolled, stored and transported. Together with the cuirass and
helmet, they provide a complete picture of what a warrior would have looked like.
Several rare pieces of armour were identified in the UK survey. Among the most
unusual are two hood-type helmets (see Figures 4.9 and 4.10) held at the BM; a shoulder
guard and a pair of shark’s teeth gauntlets, also held at the BM, and three forearm
guards edged with shark’s teeth, two of which are at the BM and one is in Liverpool, at
the World Museum. Two rare examples of cuirass were discovered at the Royal Albert
Memorial Museum in Exeter (RAMM) (Figure 2.1) and National Museums Scotland
(NMS) in Edinburgh (Figure 2.2). These two pieces have the appearance of a cuirass,
in that they are worn on the torso, have a headguard, are made of similar material, in a
similar way and have evidence of lozenge decoration – however they are very different
in style from the majority. Both were collected and donated by Dr J.G. McNaughton.
This style is discussed further in Chapter 3.
Where is the armour?
We found armour in museum collections across England and Scotland but, interestingly,
no examples were located in Northern Ireland or Wales. Ports and towns with strong
maritime connections were revealed as hubs, with significant collections being located
in Brighton, Bristol, Edinburgh, Exeter, Ipswich, Liverpool, Montrose, Newcastleupon-Tyne, Truro and Whitby. Scotland was also established as a hub, with museums in
37
Fighting Fibres
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Montrose holding important, early pieces of armour. Scotland
generally has significant ethnographic collections, due to its Enlightenment history
placing it at the heart of scientific, philosophical and anthropological exploration in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With hundreds of scientific minds, great thinkers
and ambitious explorers travelling abroad and making contact with new cultures and
‘exotic’ objects, there was a continuous flow of material back to Scotland.
Where are they now?
Two pieces of armour identified in the survey are currently missing and can no longer
be located. The first is a helmet, once in the collections of the Bankfield Museum,
Halifax, while the second is a cuirass that was known to be in the collection of Dr
Grierson’s Museum, in Thornhill near Dumfries, sometime in the 1960s. This cuirass
is just visible in an archival photograph of the museum’s galleries where it is seen
hanging from the rafters (see Chapter 10). Looking at this photo there is no doubt it
is a cuirass, although an entry in the Museum’s 1886 register, in Dr Grierson’s hand,
reads: ‘1240. Mating [sic] strongly wove used as armour from York Islands N.E. of
Australia. Presented by Mrs Samuel Dick … Duke of York Islands, one of the Union
Islands [Tokelau], in Polynesia October 1886’. After 1965, most of the ethnographic
collections from Dr Grierson’s Museum were transferred to Dumfries Museum and
the cuirass disappeared.
Who were the collectors and donors of armour?
Although we have been able to establish a secure provenance for many of the pieces of
armour identified in the survey, others can only be traced back to dealers and traffickers
in ‘curios’. This is not unusual and the same could be said for the biographies of many
of the ethnographic objects held in museum collections around the world. Perhaps
because of the armour’s striking appearance, however, we see a greater percentage of
collector-dealers than might otherwise have been expected. Where we have been able to
establish a secure provenance, the collectors involved tend to be colonial administrators,
missionaries, members of the Royal Family, naval officers or seamen and museum
curators. Admiral Edward Henry Meggs Davis, Rev. George Herbert Eastman O.B.E.,
Rev. William Goward, Sir Arthur Grimble, Sir Arthur Gordon (later Lord Stanmore),
the Hon. Charles Swayne and Sir Everard Ferdinand im Thurn were all major players
in the collection and dispersal of armour into UK museum collections. All of these
men were embedded in the networks of colonial and missionary activities that were
established in the Gilbert Islands in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
More details about the specific biographies and connections between these collectors
can be found in Chapter 9. In some cases we were unable to discover anything about the
history of a piece of armour. As those who work in museums are aware, documentation
practices in the past were often less than rigorous, meaning that sometimes not even a
name was recorded in a register or catalogue, making it impossible to establish how a
piece of armour came from the Pacific to the UK.
38
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour in UK Museums
Figure 2.3. Overalls, Ln; 2107.1, 128cm (l). Marquesas
Islands. Collected by William Garnham Luard and
donated in 1837. Transferred from Chelmsford Museum
in 1963, formerly in the Chelmsford Philosophical Society
collections. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. Courtesy of Saffron
Walden Museum.
When was armour being collected?
Although it is often difficult to pinpoint the exact date
of collection, we have been able to establish that the
earliest piece of armour with a known provenance,
in a UK collection, dates back to 1837 (Figure 2.3).
This piece is a pair of overalls that are now held in the
collections of Saffron Walden Museum in Essex and
are associated with a naval man, William Garnham
Luard. Other early pieces of armour can be found in
the BM, NMS, Edinburgh, the Hunterian Museum and
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, the
Montrose Museum and Whitby Museum. All of these
can be securely provenanced to before the 1880s.
The 1837 piece in Saffron Walden was originally
donated to the Chelmsford Philosophical Society
and was recorded in their register as: ‘suit of cocoa
nut fibre, net armour from the Marquesas. Donor
Mr W.W. Luard, R.N. Witham of HMS Actaeon’. The armour was transferred to the
Chelmsford Museum and then on to Saffron Walden Museum in 1963. There, the
accession register states: ‘suit of coconut fibre (sennit) armour from the Gilbert Is.
(bears an old label which reads “Warriors dress from the Marquesan Islands presented
by Mr W.G. Luard, R.N. of H.M.S. Actaon, 1837”)’. Unfortunately, this label has since
become separated from the armour and can no longer be located. Both register entries
are intriguing as they refer to two different W. Luards, father and son and they also
both provenance the armour to the Marquesas Islands. While this attribution is most
likely a case of mistaken record-keeping, we do know that William Garnham Luard
was a naval man who spent time in the Pacific. Luard entered the Royal Naval College
at Portsmouth aged just 13, meaning that if the armour was collected by him, then
he donated it to the Chelmsford Philosophical Society aged just 17 in 1837 (see his
biography in Chapter 9).
Another early piece of armour was donated a year later, in 1838, to Whitby Museum
by a Mrs Scott of Cliff Lane (Figure 2.4). It was described in the Whitby Literary and
Philosophical Society notes in 1838 as a: ‘Pair of New Zealand Trowsers, made of the
native Flax, plaited’. The only Mrs Scott registered at Cliff lane in 1838 is an Ann Scott,
and parish records show that she was married to Richard Scott who is listed on their
marriage certificate as a ‘gent’. He died in May 1833, aged 40, and further research
undertaken by colleagues in Whitby has established that Scott had a medical condition
that meant he was not likely to travel. However, his father and grandfather were both
39
Fighting Fibres
Figure 2.4. Overalls, WHITM:ETH419,
133cm (l). New Zealand. Donated by Mrs
Scott in 1838. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017.
Courtesy of Whitby Museum.
Figure 2.5. Cuirass, A.1899.251, 108cm
approx (h). Solomon Islands. Bought from
Distington Museum, Whitehaven in 1899,
from the collection of Joseph Ritson Wallace.
© National Museums Scotland.
mariners in the Baltic region, and this armour along with other objects donated by Mrs
Scott could have been collected by them or perhaps by his cousin Thomas Parkinson,
also a mariner, who died in 1838.
Potentially the earliest cuirass held in a UK museum is in the collections of NMS in
Edinburgh (Figure 2.5). The register entry from 30 August 1899 describes it as ‘Body armour
with high back to protect the head and neck, made of plaited coir string with lozenges
of human hair introduced. Kingsmill Islands, Distington Museum, near Whitehaven’.
Distington Museum was a collection amassed by Joseph Ritson Wallace who, in February
1832, joined his wife’s half-brother aboard the Zeno for a voyage that lasted 16 months,
sailing around Cape Horn to the west coast of South America. Wallace met many travellers
and collectors on the voyage and purchased a variety of objects including “an extensive
40
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour in UK Museums
Figure 2.6. Cuirass, M1980.4987, 71cm (h). South
Sea Islands. Presented by Alexander Cruickshank
Esq in 1842. Photo: John Johnston, 2017. Courtesy
of ANGUSalive Museums.
collection of weapons from the South Sea Islands
from a Mr Lambarrie” (Fancy 2009: 7). It is not
known whether he acquired this cuirass while
on-board the Zeno, or perhaps during the many
years of collecting that followed his return to
England. Wallace originally ran a museum on the
Isle of Man, which he later moved to Whitehaven,
opening in 1850. This large and varied collection
was sold at auction after Wallace’s death in 1895.
Wallace’s great-great grandson, Andrew Legg,
kindly assisted with my research and, on further
inspection of the original 1899 sale catalogue, we
discovered an entry for lot 4845 on the eighteenth
day of the sale (Thursday 24 August 1899) for
‘Body Armour of Coir Cord and Human Hair
from Solomon Islands’. As Solomon Islands
collections do not usually contain armour, and
as the dates also match the entry in the NMS
register, I believe that this is a description of the cuirass, which is now on display in the
Facing the Sea gallery. It is possible that this cuirass was acquired from a Gilbert Islander
living in Solomon Islands.
The earliest cuirass with a secure provenance is held at Montrose Museum on the
east coast of Scotland (Figure 2.6). The Museum was set up specifically to house the
collections of the Montrose Natural History and Antiquarian Society formed in 1836
by a group of local interested parties. This date makes it the second oldest Antiquarian
Society in Scotland and because of this the Montrose collection contains very early
Pacific material. This cuirass was presented in 1842, at a time when the Society received
numerous donations, and the proceedings state that it came from: “Alex. Cruickshank,
Esq. of Stracathro” who donated “A collection of Arms from the South Sea Islands …
Dresses and coat of mail”. Although it is not possible to identify the other items from
Cruickshank, it is likely that this impressive cuirass went straight on display when the
Museum opened its doors a year later.
The survey results reveal that the collecting of armour started to decrease from
the late 1800s onwards. By the early 1900s, European travellers to the Gilbert Islands
would no doubt have heard about the extraordinary armour, but found it harder to
acquire examples. Writing about a voyage he undertook in the late nineteenth century,
Frank Burnett noted: “Armour and shark-teeth spears were formerly manufactured
here, and both were really works of art; but as necessity for them ceased to exist, they
are no longer made” (Burnett 1910: 105).
41
Fighting Fibres
The introduction of Christianity by Protestant missionaries in the mid-nineteenth
century had a significant impact on the Islands and their people. In particular,
missionaries focused on putting an end to the conflicts and disputes over land and
resources that Islanders had dealt with through staged combats involving warriors
wearing armour, and over time many traditional practices disappeared.
The decline in the collecting of armour was due, in part, to the reduction in its
production caused by this clash of cultures. When writing about his visit to Nikunau in
1872, Rev. William Wyatt Gill described Islanders coming “to see the white strangers
and to dispose of helmets of porcupine fish, complete with suits of armour of cocoanut fibre, and swords of hard wood with formidable rows of sharks’ teeth running the
entire length” (Gill 1885: 147).
A small cuirass of very distinctive manufacture and decoration entered the
collections of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow (Figure 2.7) and is associated with
the early missionary period. Rev. George Turner was ordained in 1840 and was sent by
the London Missionary Society (LMS) with his wife Mary to the New Hebrides (now
Vanuatu), and later set up a mission station in Samoa. The Hunterian’s register states
that this cuirass was probably presented by Turner in 1860 during a visit home. On his
return to Samoa in 1863 he was joined by two more missionaries, Rev. Joseph King and
Rev. Samuel Whitmee, and their wives. While stationed in Samoa, Turner’s daughter
Martha Mills was widowed in May 1864 and Whitmee’s wife Mary also died two months
later. A letter written by Rev. Whitmee to the LMS Foreign Secretary Dr Arthur Tidman
explained, “I need not detail to you all my reasons for the step; since you will not be likely
to complain, but may at once say that I have asked
Mrs Mills to become my companion; that she as well
as Dr and Mrs Turner approve” (26 July 1865, SOAS
Archives). Turner and Whitmee were now tied
together by marriage as well as by God, and Turner
entrusted his fellow missionary, turned son-in-law,
to take the gospel to the Gilbert Islands.
In 1870 Rev. Whitmee undertook what he
called a ‘Missionary Cruise’, visiting the Islands of
Tokelau, the Ellice Islands (Tuvalu) and some of the
Gilbert Islands, in the ship the John Williams. On
15 October 1870 the John Williams left the Ellice
Group for the Gilbert Islands, stopping first in
Arorae, followed by Tamana, Onotoa and Beru. He
then visited Nikunau in 1871. Although Whitmee
does not mention collecting objects while on his
travels, four pieces of armour in the PRM collection
bear his name. A letter found among the Rolleston
papers at the Ashmolean Museum explains how
Figure 2.7. Cuirass, GLAHM:E.462. Gilbert Islands.
Collected and donated by Rev George Turner c.1840-1860.
© The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2017.
42
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour in UK Museums
Whitmee’s armour came to the PRM: “I am accordingly now sending, under the care
of Rev. J. King, of the Samoan Mission, the articles specified in the accompanying list.
Mr King will probably reach England about May or June next” (From Rev. Whitmee to
Prof. Rolleston, Ashmolean, 6 November 1872, SOAS Archives). Five pieces of armour
from a ‘Mr King’ were also donated to the BM on 15 September 1873 and it is probable
that this is Rev. Joseph King who also donated Whitmee’s armour to the Ashmolean
Museum in the same year.
During the mid to late nineteenth century many islands in the Pacific experienced
the rapid expansion of Western trade and were exposed to blackbirders, who removed
Islanders to work as labourers on plantations in Australia, Tahiti and Peru. Gilbert
Islanders were among those targeted by Benjamin Boyd and William ‘Bully’ Hayes,
two notorious blackbirders active in the mid-nineteenth century. Whitmee described
how, during his missionary cruise of 1870, Tamana Islanders were nervous and
resisted coming forward to greet his vessel for fear it was the “men stealing ship”
from Tahiti. He wrote: “Had I not been accompanied by Christian natives of Tamana
who told the people why I had gone to visit them, I might have paid with my life for
the cruelty of these modern slavers” (Whitmee 1871: 31). The increased presence of
colonial administrators, following the creation of the Gilbert Islands Protectorate by
the British in 1892, contributed to the decline in the production of armour. In his
1912-1914 Colonial Report from the Protectorate, Edward Carlyon Eliot noted of the
Gilbert Islanders: “They have adopted and adapted themselves to British rule with
extraordinary facility … Although the reasonable influences of civilisation upon the
native are on the whole excellent, they may have the effect of slowly discouraging old
native customs” (Eliot 1915: 14). The increase in the numbers of Europeans arriving in
the Islands also brought a period of population decline due to introduced diseases such
as measles. It has been estimated that the population of the Gilbert Islands was reduced
from 20,000 to under 3,000 in the late nineteenth century, recovering to approximately
30,000 by 1929 (Grimble 1930). As a result of these various factors, the production
of armour gradually declined and then ceased. Islanders no longer took part in the
traditional battles aimed at resolving conflicts over land and, with armour no longer
being worn, those suits in existence were traded, sold and exchanged away from the
Islands in a relatively short period of time.
However, our survey revealed two pieces of armour – a porcupine fish helmet and
a cuirass – were made and presented to HRH Prince Philip in 1959 on the Island of
Tarawa. These pieces were almost certainly made specifically for the Royal Tour and
may have been created by the last known maker of armour, a man named Tebeioo,
who also made the armour now on display in Te Umwanibong Kiribati Culture Centre
and Museum (see Clark, Chapter 3). The pieces presented to Prince Philip now form
part of the Royal Collection, cared for by the BM (Figures 2.8 and 2.9). Before their
production, it is likely that no armour had been made for over 50 years. Recently,
however, several new pieces of armour have been created, and we have included these
in our survey. The most recent item is a contemporary helmet, inspired by the historic
porcupine fish helmets, and made by the artist Chris Charteris (see Figure 4.11). This
helmet was commissioned in 2016 by the Horniman Museum, London, for display in
43
Fighting Fibres
Figure 2.8. Porcupine fish helmet,
Oc1975,Loan01.84, 37cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Presented to HRH Prince Philip in 1959, Royal
Collection Trust (no. 74039). Royal Collection
Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.
Figure 2.9. Cuirass, Oc1975, Loan01.98,
82cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Presented
to HRH Prince Philip in 1959, Royal
Collection Trust (no. 74052). Royal
Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II 2017.
its galleries. A new, complete, suit of armour was created by Kaetaeta Watson, Chris
Charteris and Lizzy Leckie for exhibition at MAA in 2017.
What can we learn from the survey?
When we first embarked on the survey, we were hoping to trace notable changes in
style over time, or distinct varieties between islands or villages. Unfortunately, a lack
of detailed provenance information has meant this aim has proved elusive. However,
close analysis of the objects does yield some important differences in aspects of their
production. Looking at the overalls – the second-most collected type of armour – three
main styles can be identified: finely-worked armour with one or more panels affixed to
the front and reverse to protect the wearer’s vulnerable areas, many of which are edged
with human hair cord; trousers without straps; and, lastly, coarse knotted overalls with
straps but no additional panels. After studying the collector and acquisition dates for
these pieces, it can be suggested that those with the extra panels represent an early
style. Relevant examples with this feature are held in Bristol (dated before 1870), the
BM (c.1860s), Saffron Walden (1837) and Whitby (1838), see Figures 2.3 and 2.4.
However, a well-known illustration from the United States Exploring Expedition of
1841, depicting a warrior wearing overalls without any extra panels, complicates this
hypothesis (see Figure 6.9). So, while it may be that the addition of panels could be a
signifier of an early piece, it is clear that armour without additional panels was also in
use during that period.
44
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour in UK Museums
Figure 2.10. Feather detail
on overalls A.1966.12.b,
Micronesia. Transferred
from the Tower Armouries
in 1966. Purchased from
William Downing Webster
before 1895. Photo: Polly
Bence, 2017. Reproduced
Courtesy of Glasgow
Museums.
Figure 2.11. Cuirass with shells, BOLMG:1890.14b.11(b), 52cm (h) torso. Kingsmill Islands.
Bought from auctioneers Capes, Dunn & Pilcher in 1890 from the collection of George
C. Yates. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. © Bolton Library and Museum Services.
45
Fighting Fibres
Several pieces of armour identified in the survey appear to be rare, or perhaps even
unique. For example, in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum, there is a piece of armour
which includes a waist panel decorated with long black feathers from the frigate bird
(Figure 2.10). Two rare cuirasses were located that have cowrie shells attached to the
back of the headguard: one in the Pitt Rivers Museum and one in Bolton Museum. Rev.
Samuel Whitmee probably collected the example now in Oxford (Figure 3.8), whereas
the Bolton example came to the museum in 1890 via an auction and was formerly
in the collection of George C. Yates, a local antiquarian (Figure 2.11). Kiribati oral
histories suggest that, as with the incorporation of human hair, the addition of feathers
and shells was a deliberate strategy aimed at harnessing spiritual powers associated
with the realms of the sky and sea. As such, these cuirasses are likely to have belonged
to a warrior or a chief. An early depiction of a warrior wearing a cuirass with shell
decoration was made by John Webster, a Scot living in New Zealand. Scot’s The Warrior
of Nukunau [Nikunau], from 1851 (Figure 2.12), is an intriguing image and its title
might suggest that cuirasses with shells were particularly associated with the Island
of Nikunau. Two others with shells are known to exist, one in Melbourne and the
other in a museum in Toulouse, France. Further research is required to establish how
rare cuirasses with shell and/or feather elements are, and to try to identify with which
Islands they might be associated.
Figure 2.12. Watercolour
on Paper, Warrior of
Nukunau by John Webster
1851, PD-1966-16.
Courtesy of Auckland
Museum Tamaki Paenga
Hira.
46
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour in UK Museums
One of the challenges in connecting particular pieces of armour with specific
islands is the multiple name changes the group has undergone in the period of contact
with Europeans. In 1820, the Islands were named the îles Gilbert (Gilbert Islands) by
Adam Johann von Krusenstern, a Baltic German admiral of the Czar, after the British
captain Thomas Gilbert. The term ‘Kingsmill Islands’ was also being used to refer to
those islands that lie south of the equator: Arorae, Beru, Nikunau, Nonouti, Onotoa,
Tabiteuea and Tamana. In early museum documentation, however, the term Kingsmill
Islands or Kingsmill Group was often interpreted to mean all of the Gilbert Group, until
the Gilbert Islands became the favoured term in the late nineteenth century. In our
survey findings, only 18 pieces of armour (out of 189) can be provenanced to a specific
island in Kiribati, although many more mention the Kingsmill Islands generally. It
seems probable that pieces of armour described as being from the Kingsmill Islands are
the earlier pieces in collections (early nineteenth century), and this accounts for roughly
a quarter of the pieces identified in the survey. The PRM records in particular state that
17 of its 32 pieces of armour are from the ‘Kingsmill Islands’, suggesting that they are
from the southern group of Islands listed above. It must be emphasized, however, that
in many cases, geographic provenance was either not recorded or documented at the
time of collection and the attribution of Kingsmill Islands, Gilbert Islands or Kiribati
may have been added after the accession date – adding to the confusion.
Each of the Islands has an individual and complex history and set of cultural
characteristics. Tabiteuea translates as ‘land of no chiefs’ in Gilbertese, and there is
a general consensus that Islanders from Tabiteuea were the most fearsome and that
this is where ritualized combat and, consequently, the armour may have originated.
Historically, on Tabiteuea, a man who had been selected by his family at birth embarked
on a rite of passage which lasted years, to change his status from a youth (roronga)
to a warrior (rorobuaka). Anthropologist Katharine Luomala notes that “Tabiteueans
fought among themselves to prevent any village or clan leader from becoming
paramount over the island and to resist outside invasions” (1978: 226). The findings
from the survey support this interpretation, with no armour being attributed to the
Islands above the equator. After looking at evidence in the literature and studying the
survey data, we can hypothesise that armour was more concentrated in the Kingsmill
Islands and, indeed, may have originated there, on Tabiteuea.
Several of the pieces of armour identified in the survey are attributed to Island groups
other than Kiribati. In particular, many of the earlier pieces have provenances that include
Fiji, the Marquesas Islands, New Zealand, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tonga
and how to interpret these (mis)attributions has been a further challenge for our work.
Although the armour is visually distinctive and should, in theory, be readily identifiable,
errors made by the collectors themselves (many of whom acquired armour at auctions and
never travelled to the Pacific) or by previous generations of museum staff, often get repeated
in documentation and catalogues. It is tempting, therefore, to assume that such attributions
are simply human error. However, there are cases when we know that a particular collector
was in the field acquiring objects themselves, and in these cases it seems more problematic
to assume that a mistake has been made. One example is in the collections of the Great
North Museum: Hancock, and involves body armour donated by Juliana Boyd in 1891
47
Fighting Fibres
(Figures 2.13 and 2.14). As we know that Boyd travelled to the Pacific and was acquiring
objects, it may be that she bought the armour – which is recorded in the register as being
from Fiji – from a Gilbert Islander who was living and working there. Similarly, a cuirass in
the collection of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Figure 2.15), collected by brothers
Herbert and Walter Chamberlain, was bequeathed to the Museum in 1918. As the two men
were based on the island of Naitauba, in Fiji’s northern Lau group in 1877, it is possible that
they came into contact with Gilbert Islanders there and hence acquired this cuirass in Fiji.
The most obvious challenge when undertaking a museum survey is that documentation
often fails to account for the complicated and multi-sited lives objects lead. Identifying an
object as being from a particular place should not lead one to assume that it was collected
from that same place: objects, like people, are always on the move.
Samoa was another hub for the collecting of armour. The Gilbert Islands became
part of the Samoan Mission in 1870, when Samuel Whitmee undertook his cruise and
the Islands became the northwest outstations of the Samoan Mission. The John Williams
made twice yearly visits to the outstations and there were said to be 30 missionaries
working on the Gilbert Islands at any one time (King 1899). Writing about the LMS in
Samoa in 1897, Foreign Secretary Ralph Wardlaw Thompson wrote: “For more than
fifty years it has been the training place from whence have gone out all the pastors of
the Samoan Churches, and also a great company of missionaries to the Tokelau, Ellice
and Gilbert groups, and to New Guinea” (Thompson 1900: 192). The flow of objects,
ideas and people between the Gilbert Islands and Islands elsewhere in the Pacific, in
particular those in Western Polynesia, must be understood in order to interpret the
various locations recorded as sites for the collection of armour.
The research conducted while carrying out the survey of armour in UK museums has
demonstrated that curators are aware of the importance of the coconut fibre armour in
their collections. Of the 23 museums that hold armour, eleven currently have pieces on
display in their permanent galleries. Over the past three years, I have seen all of the armour
located in the UK and have had the privilege of studying these amazing artefacts very
closely. I have had my own adventures in collecting and the result is this comprehensive
survey of coconut fibre armour. In tandem with extensive research into the collectors and
donors of armour, my hope is that this survey will be of value to future researchers. It must
be stressed, however, that this is a survey of the armour found in the United Kingdom.
There are many other fantastic collections of Kiribati armour and therefore great potential
for this project to extend outwards, to Europe and beyond.
48
Adventures in Collecting: A Survey of Coconut Fibre Armour in UK Museums
Figure 2.13. Upper body armour, NEWHM C574, 158cm (w). Fiji. Collected by Juliana Boyd
in 1891. © Photo: Andrew Agate, 2017. Great North Museum.
Figure 2.14. Overalls, NEWHM C574,
163.4cm (l). Fiji. Collected by Juliana
Boyd in 1891. © Photo: Andrew Agate,
2017. Great North Museum.
Figure 2.15. Cuirass, 1918A17.10, 80cm (h).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by the Chamberlain
brothers c.1877-1899 and donated by Captain
Norman Chamberlain in 1918. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017. Courtesy of Birmingham Museum
and Art Gallery.
49
CHAPTER 3
Te tanga: Contextualising the Kiribati Cuirass
ALISON CLARK
The coconut fibre cuirass is the most imposing and recognisable element of Kiribati
armour (Figure 3.1). Numerous examples are found in museums across the world,
many of which are well-preserved and in remarkably good condition. Fifty-three
examples were located by our survey, held in 19 institutions around the UK. Their
collection spans a 130-year period of history. Known across the Republic of Kiribati
as te tanga, only two of these iconic objects remain in the Islands, both held at Te
Umwanibong, the Cultural Centre and Museum in Bikenibeu, Tarawa (Figure 3.2).
The popularity of the cuirass with European collectors is probably attributable to
its ‘unique appearance’, as described in a 1903 letter from Captain Davis to Charles
Hercules Read at the British Museum (Davis, British Museum Correspondence, 23
September 1903). Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Kiribati
armour was highly prized by collectors and, as it became ever more available following
Islanders’ conversion to Christianity, its prevalence on the European ‘curios’ market and
in auction houses and sale rooms increased. Although no other Pacific culture created
armour on this scale, there is evidence that production spread to the neighbouring
Islands of Nauru and Tuvalu.
Contextualising the cuirass
Cuirasses were designed for combat but were also linked to ritual. In large battles,
only the main warrior would have worn the cuirass, which was placed over his suit of
armour. In one-on-one fights, the warrior would have had a specific ‘score’ to settle.
They would have been supported by others wearing only the under-parts of the armour.
Although little is known about the rituals involved in the making of cuirasses, it is
generally agreed that the process of instilling power into the garment began before the
process of making (Charteris, pers comm. 2017). While preparing coconut fibre string
(te kora), by rolling it upon their thighs to create cords, women would use thoughts
and prayers to imbue the cuirass with great spiritual power. In readiness for battle,
the entire clan would also have gone through a series of rituals to try and ensure they
emerged as victors.
51
Fighting Fibres
Figure 3.1. Coconut fibre
cuirass with struts and
decorated with human hair,
Z 7034.1, 102cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Sir Arthur
Gordon, mid-19th century.
Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017 ©
Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
Figure 3.2. Te tanga on display at Te Umwanibong Kiribati Culture Centre and Museum,
Bikenibeu, Tarawa. © Alison Clark, 2017.
52
Te tanga: Contextualising the Kiribati Cuirass
Making the cuirass
To make a cuirass would have required a communal effort, many weeks of labour and
several thousand coconuts. The production of vast quantities of coconut fibre string
and human hair cord reflects the I-Kiribati tradition of maximising available resources.
Potent materials, such as human hair, were used for decoration and to provide layers of
spiritual significance and meaning. It is believed that only women’s hair was used for
this purpose and it was invariably that of a relative of the warrior involved (Watson,
pers comm. 2017).
The cuirass is fashioned around a sturdy internal structure of coconut fibre. Plied
coconut fibre cords are woven under and over this core with the aid of a bone needle. The
technique involves weaving from the back, up and over the front of the cuirass, with extra
strings being added for the headguard, which was itself strengthened with wooden struts
running up each side. These struts were designed to provide stability and to prevent the
headguard from collapsing. In most cases, the decorative human hair was an integral
part of the construction process, not added once the object was complete.
The production of armour declined in the early 1900s following the arrival of
missionaries and representatives of the British colonial administration, who sought to
pacify the atolls. Their arrival brought to an end the large-scale wars that had occurred
in the 1800s. Traditionally, I-Kiribati people did not value anything that they did
not actively need or use, so it seems likely that objects used in warfare would have
increasingly been considered disposable. Today the peaceful nature of the people is
conveyed in the Islands’ motto: ‘Te Mauri, Te Raoi, Te Tabomoa’ (Health, Peace and
Prosperity).
Classifying the cuirass
In order to identify and understand the different features of the cuirass, it is useful to divide
them into groups based on similarities or differences. The following classifications should
not be considered exhaustive, however, as they focus solely on examples found in museum
collections in the United Kingdom. As only seven out of 53 cuirass can be geographically
provenanced to a specific island, it is difficult to establish whether individual atolls
produced specific types, or whether styles and designs changed and developed over time.
Despite common forms, almost every cuirass was made for an individual warrior and was
indicative of their status, family and identity. This makes each one distinctive and reflects
the variety of human expression, creativity and choice.
The majority of the cuirasses identified in our survey can be divided into three
types. First, those which take the common tabard form with a headguard. The second
type does not have a headguard and is a tunic style cuirass. The third variation does
have a headguard but does not conform to the common tabard design and is, instead,
worn like a jacket, with a vertical opening down the middle of the chest.
Type one
There is a lot of variation in this type around the tightness of the weave, the size and
shape of the headguard and the decoration used (Figure 3.3). The majority are made
with a relatively tight weave that gives the impression of tiny holes radiating out across
the body of the cuirass. The effect is probably caused by the action of the bone needle
53
Fighting Fibres
Figure 3.3. Coconut fibre cuirass with
struts and human hair decoration, no
number. Acquisition details unknown.
© Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service.
Figure 3.4. Coconut fibre cuirass,
Oc1894,-.218, 77cm (h). Arorae, Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Captain Davis in 1892.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
being inserted to pull the fibres over and then under the core cord. The larger the hole,
the looser and more flexible the cuirass. However, in a few examples, the weave is so
tight that these needle holes are not visible, making the cuirass appear thicker, with
a wider, almost square, shape (see for example British Museum Oc1975,Loan01.98;
World Museum Liverpool 57.66.24-27). These tighter woven cuirasses were all
collected post-1920, and may reflect the introduction of a smaller metal needle making
a fine weave more readily achievable. These particular examples can all be attributed to
the atoll of Beru, the home of the last known maker of armour in Kiribati, whose name
was Tebeioo. Thus, they can be described as being in the Beru-style.
The headguards in this first type of cuirass tend to be either short and square
(Figure 3.4), short and triangular (Figure 3.5), or large and widening out at the top,
often with a curve (Figure 3.1). The size of the headguard often corresponds with the
rigidity of the main body of the cuirass. Thus, those with a larger headguard tend
to have a thicker weave that makes the main body more rigid – probably in order to
support the additional weight. Generally, headguards were strengthened with coconut
wood struts and the larger examples were given further support with two additional
struts that run from the body of the cuirass to the headguard.
54
Te tanga: Contextualising the Kiribati Cuirass
Figure 3.5. Coconut fibre cuirass with
minimal decoration, 2011.93.1, 71cm (h).
Tabiteuea, Kingsmill Islands. Donated by
Evert Jan Brill before 1871. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017 © Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
Figure 3.6. Coconut fibre tunic, NEWHM
C732, 62cm (h). Tongatoboo (Tongatapu,
Tonga). Collected by Lancelot Iredale and
donated in 1841. © Great North Museum.
Type two
Four examples of this tunic-style cuirass (Figure 3.6) were identified in the survey
of UK museum collections. One example is that donated by Lancelot Iredale during
a visit home to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1841, and bears the dubious provenance of
‘Tongataboo’ [Tongatapu]. Iredale was transported to New South Wales as a convict in
1816. There, he made a life for himself and established an ironmongery and hardware
business in 1822. By 1834, he had been awarded a contract to supply tools to the Colonial
Secretary’s Office (Sydney Herald 1834). It is unclear whether he travelled in the
Pacific; however, his association with the Colonial Service and his regular attendance
at St James Church, King Street, Sydney – which was frequented by missionaries who
worked in the Pacific Islands – suggest possible sources for his acquisition of this
particular cuirass. Despite its attribution to Tonga, the materials used, its form and
decoration all suggest a Kiribati provenance. While the shape generally reflects that of
a type one, this example is much more flexible. Also it is not made in one piece and is
55
Fighting Fibres
instead a series of panels sewn together. There is no obvious way of tying the two side
panels together, so it may well be that this type of cuirass was worn with a belt. The
decoration is typically Kiribati, with the back edge of the cuirass featuring a line of
small triangles created from human hair. The triangular design represents the teeth of
the shark and features strongly across a range of Kiribati material culture. Referencing
the shark is another way of imbuing the armour with power. As this is a unique design,
it is difficult to say whether it can be identified as a ‘type’ or simply a unique variant.
However, it seems clear that it did originate in Kiribati.
Type three
Only two examples of the third type of cuirass were identified in UK museum
collections. They were both collected by Dr J.G. McNaughton, and are held at Royal
Albert Memorial Museum (Figure 2.1) and National Museums Scotland (Figure 2.2).
Despite the fact that one bears the provenance ‘Tapitowaya’ [Tabiteuea] and the
other ‘Tuvalu’, it seems likely that these two cuirass originated in Kiribati, given that
McNaughton worked at the London Missionary Society hospital on Tarawa atoll in
1919 (Allen 1919: 77). However, he also worked at the missionary hospital on Funafuti
atoll between 1916 and 1917, so it is also possible that one or both of the cuirass could
have been collected in Tuvalu. Kiribati and Tuvalu are separated by only 216 miles of
sea – from Arorae in the south of Kiribati, to Nanumea in the north of Tuvalu – and the
Islands share many aspects of tangible and intangible culture. Many of the martial arts
practised in Kiribati originated in Tuvalu (Koch 1965), so there is a strong possibility
of cross-fertilisation of material culture. This likelihood is reinforced by the fact that
both island groups share similar environments and natural resources. Koch also notes
that “war-like expeditions … sailed [from Kiribati] to the islands of Tuvalu, where …
fighting took place” (Koch 1986: 245), so Islanders on Tuvalu might have acquired
items of Kiribati armour as a result of these
expeditions.
While the two cuirasses in question differ
in the way that the panels have been assembled
to form the overall jacket shape, they both use
the same weaving technique to produce these
panels. Each has a small square headguard,
and one features a lozenge shape that has been
sewn into the back of the guard . The two side
panels are drawn together with a loop and tie
system, which would have undoubtedly left
the wearer vulnerable to attack at the front.
This type of cuirass also lacks the rigidity of
Figure 3.7. Close up of the tassel on a coconut
fibre cuirass with minimal decoration.
2011.93.1. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017 © Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
56
Te tanga: Contextualising the Kiribati Cuirass
the first type and, while it might have been easier to wear, the small headguard would have
provided minimal protection.
Several elements are common to the various types of cuirass discussed here, the first
of which is the headguard. These would have offered protection to the warrior from the
misdirected throws of his own party (both men and women) who assembled behind him
in battle to launch stones at the enemy (Koch 1986: 246; Kaeppler 2008: 133). The other
element found across types of cuirass is the presence of a tassel or loop on the back, at the
base of the headguard (Figure 3.7). These may have served a practical purpose, allowing
the cuirass to be stored on a hook inside the meeting house (mwaneaba). Alternatively, the
tassel may have been used to attach a talisman or charm.
Decorating the cuirass
Cuirasses are often decorated with cords made of human hair. Other materials such
as shells and feathers were used less commonly. The choice of which materials to use,
as well as the form the decoration took, appears to have been at the discretion of the
wearer, although it may be that certain elements would have indicated a warrior’s clan
identity. Human hair cords were employed to create lozenge shapes. These were arranged
in a variety of patterns – with single or multiple vertical rows of lozenges – on both
the main body and headguard. The rows varied between one, three and five in number.
Occasionally, there is a single lozenge in the centre of the headguard. Further variations
include horizontal lines of human hair placed between the lozenges on the headguard
and the main body. These horizontal lines tend
to occur on cuirasses which have multiple
vertical rows of lozenges on the main body
and the headguard, with the exception of one
example which has thick vertical lines running
underneath a single lozenge on the main body
(Royal Albert Memorial Museum 367/2005,
see p185). The precise shape is also open to
adaptation, with some lozenges featuring ‘tails’,
providing evidence supporting the suggestion
that they represent ‘stylised dolphins’ or
fish (Koch 1986:246). Other lozenges take a
‘v shape’ (Figure 3.8), or an open lozenge (Pitt
Rivers Museum 1884.31.36). There are also
cuirass that are devoid of decoration. In some
cases, human hair is used to edge a cuirass,
creating either a striped motif, or featuring
half triangles that reference shark’s teeth.
The exact meaning of these designs remains
Figure 3.8. Coconut fibre cuirass decorated
with human hair, NCM 1987-1490, 100cm (h).
Gilbert Islands. Donated by Mr Wellington
Thompson in 1952. © Nottingham City Museum.
57
Fighting Fibres
Figure 3.9. Coconut fibre cuirass decorated
with shells, 1884.31.36, 70cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Rev. Samuel Whitmee
c.1870. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017 © Pitt
Rivers Museum.
Figure 3.10. Coconut fibre cuirass with ray
skin frontage, Oc1904,0621.29, 70cm (h).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Captain Davis
in 1892. © Trustees of the British Museum.
unknown, though it is likely that they are related to designs used in tattooing, as depicted
by Augustin Kramer (Kramer 1906: figures 26 and 27), which feature the ‘v shape’, the
fish/dolphin motif and the use of horizontal lines to break up patterns. This connection
between tattoo designs and designs found on other items of material culture, such as
carved wooden clubs or barkcloth, occurs throughout the Pacific Islands.
Two cuirasses found in the survey are ornamented with cowrie shells (Figure 3.9),
and cowries are also used in necklaces and Kiribati women’s dance belts and are often
associated with fertility and birth. These shells were, and still are, collected by women
from the reef. Their inclusion on the armour might be intended to reference the
transformation, or rebirth, of a man when he becomes a warrior. The example from
the Pitt Rivers Museum (Figure 3.9) has the added element of rows of chama shell
and palm wood discs strung onto coconut fibre cord and sewn onto the cuirass. This
emulates the decorative lines often created using human hair cords. These lengths of
shell and wood discs are usually used as dance belts or necklaces and it is very unusual
to see them attached to a cuirass. They may be recycled objects, originally owned
by the female relatives of the wearer of the cuirass, and their inclusion may again be
intended to convey power to the warrior.
A unique cuirass, held in the British Museum (Figure 3.10), has an intriguing
additional element that is both practical and spiritually significant. In his 1903 letter
to Charles Hercules Read, at the British Museum, Captain Davis describes the cuirass,
58
Te tanga: Contextualising the Kiribati Cuirass
then in his possession, as ‘the only armour so protected I saw in the whole group’.
It is a thickly woven piece with a curved body and triangular headguard and has a
large oval-shaped piece of porcupine ray skin sewn on to the front. When dried, ray
skin becomes solid and would have provided an extra layer of protection for the vital
organs. Tebeioo, the last known maker of armour, was from Beru. In an interview
given in 2016, Tebeioo’s granddaughter, Taakebu, claimed that Tebeioo had made the
cuirass collected by Davis in 1892, so perhaps the use of ray skin was unique to Beru.
The similarity in shape, human hair decoration and weave of this distinctive cuirass to
the one seen in Figure 3.4 and to another held in Cambridge (1902.425, see p.169) may
suggest that these were also made in Beru.
Conclusion
Despite being fascinated with coconut fibre armour, frustratingly few European
collectors bothered to document the process of making. Those that did produce
written accounts frequently dismissed it as ‘clumsy’ and ‘cumbrous’ and questioned
its effectiveness for combat (Kramer 1906: 272; Koch 1986: 246; Wilkes 1845: 296).
By contrast, the research undertaken for this book has highlighted the creativity and
dexterity of Kiribati Islanders and the sophisticated manufacturing process required
to produce these complex garments. One of the benefits of surveying and studying all
of the examples held in UK museums has been the opportunity, for the first time, to
compare and contrast the materials, forms, techniques and styles that make up this
historically important group of artefacts.
The creation of a new cuirass in 2016, for display at the Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology in Cambridge, offered the opportunity for some experimentation and
a number of people were able to try it on prior to it being exhibited. Three people of
different shapes and sizes wore this new cuirass and, although it had not been made with
traditional materials, were able to demonstrate that a warrior would have had a good
range of movement (Figures 3.11 and 3.12). Lizzy Leckie, one of the makers of the new
cuirass, reported that it “… didn’t feel that cumbersome, it felt balanced. It felt like you
could get quite a lot of movement from it because you could get the front and the back
to expand.” (see Chapter 8).
On a recent visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum, I spent time in the arms and armour
displays where one of their suits of coconut fibre armour is exhibited alongside
other armour from the Pacific, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. What was
immediately striking was not the differences, but the similarities. In the display case
is a ‘shirt of string work’ from the Toothill people, Paraguay, made before 1908. It
is a tabard form, woven from caraguata fibres and decorated with darker lines and
triangle shapes. It could easily be mistaken for a Kiribati cuirass, but it is not one.
The idea of an Oceanic society developing a suit of armour has often puzzled visitors
to Kiribati and those who have written about the objects. For many, the assumption
was that their development must be attributed to contact with Europeans (Wilkes
1845: 93, Koch 1986: 246). The Pitt Rivers collection of armour from around the world
suggests otherwise, demonstrating that when faced with producing something that can
protect the body, humans can and do produce similar forms that occur independently
59
Fighting Fibres
Figure 3.11. Isabella Levet wearing the new
te otanga (Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge
2017.14.1-3, and 2017.15). Photo: Lizzy
Leckie, 2016.
Figure 3.12 Bauro Kairaoi wearing the
new te otanga (Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge 2017.14.1-3). Photo: Lizzy
Leckie, 2016.
of each other. In the case of Kiribati coconut fibre armour, it may never be possible to
accurately provenance each individual cuirass. However, this survey suggests that close
study of this inventive form of protection will yield further important insights into the
world of the Kiribati warrior.
60
CHAPTER 4
Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology
of Kiribati Helmets in UK Collections
POLLY BENCE
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Gilbert Islanders were manufacturing
coconut fibre armour, the addition of a coconut fibre helmet (Te baratekora) provided
essential protection, guarding the warrior from serious harm or even death. Helmets made
from porcupine fish (Te barantauti) were also worn and are remarkable objects both in
terms of the skills involved in their manufacture and their striking appearance. When worn
together with body armour, including a cuirass and a waist belt made of porcupine ray skin,
a warrior would surely have been a formidable sight.
Following the arrival of missionaries and colonial officials, wars and combat
decreased from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. In the subsequent period,
helmets made of porcupine fish were collected in high numbers as curios and, as such,
are prevalent in museums across the world. Our survey of the armour held in UK
collections has uncovered 30 helmets (including 16 fish helmets) across ten museums:
the British Museum (12 helmets), the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
Cambridge, (three), Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (six), the Horniman Museum,
London (two), Manchester Museum (two), World Museum, Liverpool (one), Royal
Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter (one), the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro (one),
and Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow (one). A coconut fibre helmet, originally in the
collection of Whitby Museum and transferred to Bankfield Museum, in Halifax, in
1930 can unfortunately no longer be located.
In order to better understand this category of armour and to draw attention to
some interesting examples, this chapter presents a number of the helmets identified
during the UK survey. Through these specific case studies, it is possible to establish
a typology, as well as learn more about the materials and techniques used in their
manufacture.
61
Fighting Fibres
The historical helmets cover three main types:
1. Coconut fibre helmet
2. Porcupine fish helmet
3. Hood-type helmet
1. Coconut fibre helmets
1.a
This type of helmet, created from coconut fibre, is of a sturdy design and is made
using the same coiling technique found on the Kiribati cuirass, with the coils being
secured in place by a two-ply twisted coconut fibre cord. Eleven examples of this type,
with varying features, were found in the survey. This helmet (Figure 4.1), from the
collections of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge (MAA),
has elongated side pieces to protect the cheeks and a plaited cord for fastening under
the chin. It is described in the accession register as being from the Kingsmill Islands
and was donated to the Museum in February 1903, along with two cuirasses, by Arthur
Rutter, a local auctioneer and estate agent.
1.b
Another example of a coconut fibre helmet can be seen at the Royal Cornwall Museum in
Truro (Figure 4.2). It is also made using the same technique as a cuirass; however, in this
example the two-ply twisted fibre cords terminate in a top knot on the crown. A separate
piece of coconut fibre cord, decorated with banding made of human hair, has been used
to edge the rim of the helmet and would frame the face. Unfortunately no accession or
Figure 4.1. Coconut fibre
helmet, E 1902.427 75cm
(cir). Kingsmill Islands.
Donated by Arthur Rutter
in 1903. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017 © Museum
of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University
of Cambridge.
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Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology of Kiribati Helmets in UK Collections
Figure 4.2. Coconut fibre
helmet with top knot,
TRURI:1500.450.1, 17cm
(h). Acquisition details
unknown. Reproduced
with the kind permission
of the Royal Institution
of Cornwall. Photo: Mike
Searle, June 2017.
collector information exists, but it is likely to be an early example due to its sophisticated
manufacture and also because Truro was a busy port that thrived during the eighteenth
century. From the 1780s onwards, convicts as well as miners and labourers employed in
the local tin mines were sailing to Australia, and many called at the Gilbert Islands. A
similar helmet can be seen in Frankfurt Museum (registration number N.S.13373) and
was donated by the collector William Oldman in 1911.
1.c
This very fine example of a coconut fibre helmet is in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum
in Exeter (Figure 4.3). It has the same coconut fibre structure as the helmet shown in
Figure 4.1, but has the addition of a thick tuft of black human hair on the crown and tufts
of hair secured around the rim, framing the face. Human hair was an extremely precious
commodity and was regularly woven into armour and weaponry. Anthropologist
Katherine Luomala noted that “The head hair of both sexes is prominent in custom,
belief, and myth, and has a value representing an intertwining of such factors as the
aesthetic, magical, and practical” (Luomala 1978: 239). Donated to the Museum in 1945
by colonial official Richard Waterfield, it is not known exactly where or how he acquired
the helmet. This is the only example of its kind found in the UK survey; however, a very
similar helmet, with additions of human hair, can be found in the collections of the
Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich (registration number 91 876).
1.d
The BM’s collection contains 12 helmets, more than any other institution in the
UK. A donor referred to in the registers as a ‘Mr King’, now thought to be Joseph
King of the London Missionary Society, donated a coconut fibre helmet (Figure 4.4)
in 1873, together with five other pieces of armour. This helmet is made using the
same coiling technique as other coconut fibre helmets and cuirasses. However, this
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Fighting Fibres
Figure 4.3. Coconut fibre
helmet with human hair,
9/1945/37, 28.4cm (h).
Collected and donated by
Richard Waterfield in 1945.
Photo: Peter Stephens.
Courtesy of the Royal
Albert Memorial Museum
& Art Gallery, Exeter City
Council.
Figure 4.4. Coconut fibre
helmet with tropic bird
feathers, Oc.8045, 54cm (h
approx). Gilbert Islands.
Purchased from Mr King
(Rev Joseph King) in 1873.
© Trustees of the British
Museum.
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Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology of Kiribati Helmets in UK Collections
example has plumes of white and red tropic bird tail feathers secured through a hole
in the crown. This extremely rare helmet is the only example of its kind discovered
in the survey. The feathers are fragile and, as such, are a surprising addition to an
object apparently designed for combat. It is possible that this helmet had a spiritual,
ceremonial, significance and would not have been worn in battle. As with many Pacific
Island cultures, in the Gilbert Islands the realms of the living and the dead are closely
intertwined. It is believed that the Anti (spirits) visit the living, often taking animal
forms. French anthropologist Guigone Camus explains that on the island of Tabiteuea
“the primordial goddess Nei Tituabine appears in the aspect of a giant marine ray,
but she can also send her messenger, a red-tailed tropic bird” (Camus 2014: 79). This
insight into local cosmologies could explain the addition of the tropic bird feathers on
this helmet.
2. Porcupine fish helmets
The porcupine fish (Diodontidae) is a solitary, nocturnal, fish common in all tropical
oceans around the world, preferring the seabed, lagoons and coral reefs as its natural
habitat. They are usually light brown in colour, overlain with dark spots on the body
and fins. Their internal organs contain a natural neurotoxin that is 1,200 times more
powerful than cyanide and they use this as a deadly weapon against predators. The
species Diodon hystrix or Diodon holocanthus were used to make fish helmets, most
likely the former, judging by the patterning found on fish skins in museum collections.
The process of manufacture involves distressing the fish in water, forcing it to naturally
defend itself. The white belly swells up with water and expands to several times its
normal size and it is then captured in this inflated state. The fish were buried in sand
to allow insects to clean out the interior and then left for a week in the sun to dry
out. Indeed, sand particles are still evident on many fish helmets in collections today.
Pandanus leaf linings were occasionally added for comfort, as well as coconut fibre
cordage for fastening under the chin. German biologist Eugene Gudger wrote in some
detail about porcupine fish helmets in the early twentieth century:
That such a helmet of stiff dried skin with its supporting and strengthening
horny spines is capable of warding off or at any rate deadening blows, such
as those inflicted by the weapons … can not be doubted. … In short, it must
be admitted that the dried Diodon skin makes a fairly effective helmet for the
Gilbert Islander (Gudger 1930: 442)
The earliest written record of these helmets can be found in the accounts of the
United States Exploring Expedition, when several of the crew landed on Tabiteuea in
April 1841. Captain Charles Wilkes wrote:
However singular the body-dress is, that of the head is still more so: it
consists of the skin of the porcupine-fish, cut open at the head, and stretched
sufficiently large to admit the head of a man. It is perfectly round, with the tail
65
Fighting Fibres
sticking upwards, and the two fins acting as a covering and guard for the ears:
its colour is perfectly white, and by its toughness and spines affords protection
against the native weapons (Wilkes 1845: 50-51)
2.a
Sixteen porcupine fish helmets were found in the UK survey. This example (Figure 4.5),
in the BM, has all of the fins, cheek and neck pieces intact. A pandanus leaf lining has
been added either for decorative or comfort purposes and a two-ply twisted coconut
fibre tie remains for fastening. It was donated in 1887 by Harry Veitch of James Veitch
& Sons, a well-known nursery business. This fantastic helmet was most likely collected
by Harry’s brother John Gould Veitch, who was a horticulturalist on board the HMS
Curaçoa in 1865. The Curaçoa visited many Pacific Islands (including Fiji and Samoa)
under the command of Commodore Sir William Wiseman. As the ship did not actually
visit the Gilbert Islands, it may be that the helmet was acquired from an Islander
living elsewhere at the time. This is one of the finest and most complete examples of
porcupine fish helmets found in the survey.
2.b
Another example of a porcupine fish helmet was found in Manchester Museum
(Figure 4.6). This helmet had been transferred from the Wellcome Collection in 1951
and has no associated collector information. Again, a pandanus leaf lining has been
added to the interior of this helmet. When asked about these linings, the I-Kiribati
weaver and artist Katetaeta Watson suggested that they were made to measure as
“pandanus leaf is very pliable when freshly prepared”. She observed that the lining
in the Manchester helmet was of a high quality and had been made with enough
horizontal and vertical strands to allow for an extra section to fold up along the edge,
in order to create a “decorative element to the helmet” (Watson pers. comm. 2017).
2.c
In the collections of the Horniman Museum in South London is a unique example of a
porcupine fish helmet (Figures 4.7a-b). The head, sides and belly of the fish have been
removed, which results in a level rim and therefore no cheek and neck protectors. The
rim has then been stitched with what appears to be two-ply twisted coconut fibre cord.
Most surprisingly, a plume of red, black and grey hair emerges from where the tail fin
should be and this has been fixed in place using a European plied cotton cord and plaster
of Paris. This helmet was previously in the Wellcome Collection and was transferred
to the Horniman Museum in 1950. During research for this book, conservator Julia
Gresson carried out tests on the hair and concluded that it is a mixture of human and
animal. Further inspection under a microscope revealed that the red hair is very likely
to be dyed human hair and the grey is goat hair, similar to that used on Naga objects
from North East India. There is a long and complicated history of fakes and forgeries
in the museum world and this is a particular issue with items from the Wellcome
Collection. The term ‘object-fabrication’ can be used to describe the phenomenon
where a new object has been created by making amendments or additions to existing
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Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology of Kiribati Helmets in UK Collections
Figure 4.5. Porcupine fish helmet,
Oc1887,0201.54, 37.5cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by John Gould Veitch or
Peter Veitch and donated by Harry Veitch in
1887. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 4.6. Porcupine fish helmet with pandanus leaf lining, 0.8102, 42cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Gift of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1951. Image courtesy of Manchester
Museum. © The University of Manchester.
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Fighting Fibres
Figure 4.7a-b. Porcupine fish helmet with hair plume and close-up. 30.12.50/8, 36cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Donation from the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1951. Photo: Dani Tagen,
2017. © Horniman Museum and Gardens.
pieces. The aim of such historical practices was to intrigue the museum-going public
but, with the passage of time, they now also serve to confuse and confound curators.
These objects tell their own stories; they are tangible evidence of a museum visitor’s
desire for wonder, as well as the desire of museum staff in the past to supply that
wonder. As Sir Mark Jones wrote, after curating a British Museum exhibition in 1990:
it can be argued that fakes, scorned or passed over in embarrassed silence by
scholar, dealer and collector alike, are unjustly neglected; that they provide
unrivalled evidence of the values and perceptions of those who made them,
and of those for whom they were made (Jones 1990: 11).
3. Hood-type helmet
In his publication of the 1890s, James Edge-Partington included an illustration of
a Kingsmill Group warrior whose name was ‘Bob’ (see Figure 4.8 and Chapter 5).
Surrounding the central drawing of ‘Bob’ are four illustrations of helmets found in the
British Museum’s collection (including Figure 4.4). A more flexible hood-type helmet,
made of knotted coconut fibre, is depicted in the top left of the drawing. The hood
appears to be attached to the headguard of a cuirass by a piece of cord. On further
inspection, it seems that this drawing depicts one of two ‘hood-type’ helmets in the
68
Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology of Kiribati Helmets in UK Collections
BM that were found unregistered in the collection in 1980 and assigned a ‘Q’ number
to denote their unknown provenance. After noticing the similarity between EdgePartington’s drawing and these two ‘hoods’, as part of the research for this book, it
seems certain that they entered the Museum before 1900 and should be considered as
a third type of helmet (Figures 4.9 and 4.10). German Anthropologist Gerd Koch, who
wrote extensively on the material culture of Kiribati, mentions this third type of helmet:
“On Tabiteuea (as on Nauru), a head protection of this kind was occasionally funnelshaped, with a small opening at the front” (Koch 1986: 246). These two examples are
the only ones found in the UK survey.
Figure 4.8. Illustration
of a Kingsmill warrior,
‘Bob’ and surrounding
helmets in James EdgePartington’s ‘An album
of the weapons, tools,
ornaments, articles of
dress of the natives of the
Pacific Islands’ 1890.
© Trustees of the British
Museum.
69
Fighting Fibres
Figure 4.9. Hood made of knotted coconut fibre,
Oc1980,Q.954, 41cm (h). Kingsmill Islands.
Acquisition details unknown, but in the
Museum before 1900. © Trustees of the British
Museum.
Figure 4.10. Hood made of knotted coconut
fibre, Oc1980,Q.955, 57cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Acquisition details unknown, but
in the Museum before 1900 ©. Trustees of
the British Museum.
Conclusions: the significance of sea and sky
An exciting fourth type of helmet is the most recent addition to the UK survey and
was specially commissioned by the Horniman Museum (Figure 4.11). Named Te Tia
Kawakin – the guardian/protector, this piece was made in 2017 by artist Chris Charteris
from a recycled motorcycle helmet, turret shells (Maoricolpus roseus) and liquid
nails. It has a lining made from South East Asian reeds. After researching collections
of Kiribati armour worldwide, Charteris created this helmet as a contemporary
interpretation of the traditional porcupine fish helmets saying that he considers them
“protective headwear derived from the ocean”. This helmet will go on display in a new
World Cultures gallery, due to open at the Horniman Museum in 2018.
Like other island cultures in Micronesia, where land is scarce, the ocean has a special
significance to the I-Kiribati. It brings life, sustenance, and connects Islanders with each
other. It is also the home of the Anti (spirits). I-Kiribati histories tell of sea spirits that
dwell in the shallow waters surrounding the Islands and myths describe them communing
with the living at night. Before entering into battle, ibonga (healers) would use their
powers to try to avoid conflict and instead seek peaceful negotiations. If this failed they
could summon the Anti. “Warfare and the religious cosmos were inextricably linked …
Everything emanated from the Anti – valour, wisdom and strength … A war chief never
70
Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology of Kiribati Helmets in UK Collections
Figure 4.11. “Te Tia Kawakin (the guardian/protector)” Kiribati Eco-Warrior helmet made
by Chris Charteris in 2017 of recycled motorcycle helmet, turret shells (Maoricolpus roseus),
liquid nails and reed lining. P972. Photo by Lizzy Leckie, 2017. © Chris Charteris.
embarked on a war without consulting his seer” (Rennie 1989: 127). By using creatures
that inhabit the surrounding waters in their armour (in the form of poisonous fish, shark
teeth and ray skin), Islanders were referencing their relationship with the ocean and its
ancestors. If the porcupine fish was venerated as an ancestor and represented the spirit
world, then perhaps fish helmets were reserved only for uea (chiefs) and were worn in
order to imbue the wearer with the ocean’s power.
Katharine Luomala’s research carried out on Tabiteuea, in 1948, suggests that
particular birds were also considered to have spiritual powers and played an important
role in I-Kiribati culture. It is therefore not surprising that we have found evidence
of feathers being incorporated in both coconut fibre armour and helmets. Luomala
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Fighting Fibres
describes the period of intense uncertainty and change in the Islands following the
arrival of the American missionary Hiram Bingham in 1867. She notes that Islanders
who converted to Christianity chose to identify themselves using frigate bird feathers
and, as a result, became known as the ‘Feather People’ (Luomala 1954). As Tabiteuea
and the Kingsmill Islands have been suggested as the original source for coconut fibre
armour (see Chapter 2), it is perhaps significant that these so-called ‘Feather People’
were also concentrated there. In the Berlin Ethnologisches Museum there is a coconut
fibre helmet decorated with feathers (registration number VI 14621). This striking
helmet, which is also adorned with shells and human hair, is provenanced to Nauru,
an Island that lies only 500 miles from Tabiteuea. Although tenuous, it is tempting
to speculate that there might, indeed, be a link between the ‘Feather People’, coconut
fibre armour and its dissemination outwards from Tabiteuea to the other Islands in the
archipelago and beyond. Further research and fieldwork might provide more concrete
evidence for such a hypothesis.
In the literature, there are several references to a type of helmet that is completely
absent from the UK survey: a porcupine fish helmet with feathers protruding from the tail
fin. John Coulter, a nineteenth century visitor to the Islands, recorded its existence, writing:
“The head is surmounted by … a helmet, in a conical shape, and made of dried fishes
skin, with two or three feathers of various colours stuck in the top for a plume” (Coulter
1847: 191). Further mention is made by the writer John George Wood who proposed that
these particular helmets may have been reserved for the chiefs of the village.
That they may look more imposing in battle, the chiefs wear a cap made of
the skin of a diodon, or porcupine fish, which, when inflated, is covered with
sharp spikes projecting in every direction, and upon this cap is fixed a bunch
of feathers (Wood 1870: 381)
Given the striking appearance of these helmets and the multiple references to them,
their absence from UK collections is intriguing. Indeed the existence of a ‘missing’
type of helmet raises interesting questions for researchers involved in producing a
survey-style analysis of a collection. How can absences be represented in the findings?
Although it seems possible (on the basis of probability) that porcupine fish helmets,
with feathers protruding from the top, did make their way to the UK, for whatever
reason none have survived. Of course, it may be that helmets included in our survey
did, in the past, have such feather decorations and that these have been lost due to
pests or other damage. Until such time as further evidence can be found, however, they
remain absent from UK collections.
Having spent the past three years researching Kiribati armour in UK collections, it is
the porcupine fish helmet that fascinates me the most. Although it has long been argued
that this fierce looking helmet protected a warrior in battle, my research leads me to
conclude that they are unlikely to have been robust enough to protect against a severe
blow. One writer has suggested that they may, indeed, have been “more about drama
than defense” (Langlois 2015). Too fragile to withstand any forceful impact, we can
conclude that this type of helmet was designed primarily to intimidate the opposition.
The porcupine fish helmets that survive in UK collections today are extremely fragile, the
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Protection, Status or Intimidation? A Typology of Kiribati Helmets in UK Collections
spines are razor sharp and are particularly prone to breaking. By their very nature they
are incredibly delicate objects, and they have only become more so with age.
There is still so much to learn about the various types of helmet worn as part of
the suits of coconut fibre armour on the Islands of Kiribati. What is certain is that
Islanders employed great skill and ingenuity in creating them, making full use of the
resources available to them. The evidence for this can be seen in the variety of helmets
found in UK collections today.
73
CHAPTER 5
‘Bob, a native of Tarawa, Kingsmill Group,
Aged 18’
ALISON CLARK
From the 1760s, Pacific Islanders began volunteering as crew on European and
American ships. These adventurous individuals acted as translators and mediators
between worlds: forging relationships, brokering exchanges and negotiating conflicts.
Some of these kanaka seamen (as they were referred to by Westerners) “travelled as
enobled [sic] tourists – as guides for explorers and pampered specimens for naturalists”
(Chappell 1997: xiv). Omai, the Tahitian, who came to London courtesy of Captain
Cook’s second voyage, is one such famous example; Prince Lee Boo of Palau is another.
These visitors gained a kind of celebrity status and thus remain visible in the historical
archives today. Many others, however, are confined to the shadows; indeed, often we
do not even know their names. While traces can sometimes be found, scattered in
the documents of libraries, archives, museums and occasionally in the graveyards of
European towns and cities, ultimately their stories are difficult to piece together or
have vanished entirely. One such visitor is Bob (Figure 5.1).
Featured in a series of nine photographs, not including copies, in the collections of
the British Museum (BM), is a man described as ‘Bob’, who is attributed to both Tarawa
(Kingsmill Islands) and Rotuma in the inscriptions on the images. In one of these
photographs, which we believe was taken at the Museum in 1872, he is seen dressed in
a suit of coconut fibre armour, wearing a porcupine fish helmet, and holding a shark
tooth weapon (Figure 5.2). It is a striking image and its appearance in the Museum
collections raises a number of questions about how Bob came to be in London, why he
visited the Museum and what purpose the image was meant to serve.
In the course of our research we have now identified each of the pieces of armour
Bob is wearing in the collections of the BM; the cuirass is Oc.1973 (Figure 5.3) and
came to the Museum from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in 1866; the overalls are
Oc.1108; and the helmet is Oc.7979 (see Chapter 10) and was purchased from a German
dealer named Eckhart in 1872. The weapon is also strikingly similar to an example also
found the collections (Oc.1961). In one corner of the photograph a blurred bundle
is just visible that looks like a pile of clothing, perhaps suggesting that the decision
to get Bob posing in the armour was fortuitous. However, some of the other images
75
Fighting Fibres
Figure 5.1. Carte de visite of Bob. Photo: Adamo
Pedroletti. 1871-72. Oc,A3.63. © Trustees of the
British Museum.
Figure 5.2. Bob wearing Kiribati armour. Unknown
photographer. OcB31.26. © Trustees of the British
Museum.
in the Museum collection might suggest otherwise. In one, a carte de visite, Bob is
seen wearing a three piece suit and tie, while a number of the other photographs are
anthropometric studies that show him unclothed and posed in a variety of stances.
In recent years, those who have examined these photographs have debated
whether they can be interpreted as showing Bob exerting a level of agency over his
depiction (McKinney and Romanek 2012), or rather that they reflect Bob’s position of
“powerlessness” (Brunt 2012). In the context of our own research, we have established
a further layer of interpretation about Bob’s visit to the BM and his engagement with
the pieces that now form part of its collection. This research provides an unexpected
foreshadowing of the contemporary museum practice of engaging with Pacific
Islanders around collections in order to improve documentation.
We know that Bob arrived in London in late 1871 and was back in the Pacific in
1872. These dates are corroborated by the BM registers, which show that the helmet
that Bob is wearing in the photograph was accessioned in 1872, and by the diaries of
Charles Frederick Wood, the man who brought Bob to London. Bob came to London
with Wood, a traveller, author and collector who sailed around the Pacific Islands in
the 1860s and 1870s. Wood published an account of his last voyage in the 1875 volume
A Yachting Cruise in the South Seas. The records show that Wood established a sheep
station in Queensland that was worked by labourers whom he had ‘recruited’ during
76
‘Bob, a native of Tarawa, Kingsmill Group, Aged 18’
Figure 5.3. Cuirass, Oc.1973, 77cm (h).
Kingsmill Islands. Transferred from the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1866.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 5.4. Portrait of Charles Wood in Rotuma. Unknown
photographer. 1869-72. Courtesy and copyright Georgina
Connaughton.
a voyage to the Islands known today as Fiji, Rotuma, Tuvalu and Kiribati. During his
second voyage, he travelled to Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu),
eventually settling in Rotuma (Figure 5.4) where he exported barrels of coconut oil.
He arrived back in England in December 1871. The following year he left England
again, on what would be his last voyage to the Pacific. On these voyages, Wood was
also bartering with Islanders for local artefacts and was particularly interested in
those crafted before the introduction of European materials (Wood 1875: 18). He later
donated approximately 60 objects to the BM between 1872 and 1875, and a further 37
to the Pitt Rivers Museum.
In A Yachting Cruise in the South Seas, Wood writes with evident familiarity about
picking up Islanders and ferrying them about the region, as well as about hiring them
to crew his boat:
I found any number of people anxious to go away with me, and I found out
afterwards as I went from island to island, that the natives would like to turn
one into an omnibus, to pick up and set down passengers all over the Pacific.
As it is, I have a curious collection: first the ambassador for Niuafu; then
a native of Wallis Island who has nearly lost his eyesight, and is anxious to
77
Fighting Fibres
return home; then a lame little boy suffering from a painful disease in his feet,
whom I have undertaken to cure and bring back again; and finally two sons of
chiefs, boys of about fourteen, who are being sent by their fathers under my
charge, to see the world (Wood 1875: 17).
Wood’s journals suggest that the Islanders he met expressed a clear desire to travel
and join his crew. However, we know that this was not always the case with voyagers
and traders in the Pacific. Wood’s activities also suggest another dimension to these
interactions and he writes of rewarding those Islanders who were able to learn how
to be a “white man’s boy”. Despite encouraging such adaptations, Wood – somewhat
ironically – professes concern that contact with Europeans will cause the demise of
indigenous Pacific cultures. So great was his concern to document the ‘authentic’ Pacific
that he commissioned photographers to accompany him on his voyages. Wood wrote
that “the opportunity of taking portraits of these people in their primitive condition
will soon be lost so rapid is the advance of so-called civilization” (Wood 1875: i – ii).
It was during his second voyage, while living on Rotuma, that Wood met Bob
and decided to bring him back to England. From Wood’s diary, we learn of how he
encountered Bob and his perception of him as just another acquisition:
This morning my boy Kawtom did not put in an appearance I having paid his
wages yesterday. So I shut up my house and waited till the natives found me
another servant. At night I engaged Bob a native of Apian [Abaiang]. I had
wanted him from the first, hearing that natives will not work in their own
island. He had some knowledge of a white man’s boy having been on a boat
to Sydney from which he had disembarked on his arrival here as the Captain
paid him nothing and given him hardly any food (Wood 1871: 9 June).
Bob is most likely to have received his English name on this Australian ship. In his
accounts, Wood wrote about this phenomenon stating that
The first object of every lad is to run away to sea, often intending never to
return. He cares not for his name received in Christian baptism … In his heart
he looks upon the name the sailors give him as his real one, whether Tom,
Dick, or Harry, and this will cling to him through life (Wood 1875: 27).
The fact that Bob and Wood met in Rotuma may also explain the confused dual
attribution of Rotuman and Kingsmill Islander on the back of the carte de visites.
Wood left Rotuma with Bob on 16 August 1871, writing in his diary that the
two were headed for Fiji and then New Zealand (Wood 1871: 16 August). En route,
Wood writes that Bob became ill and then improved. By the time Wood reached San
Francisco, however, Bob has disappeared from his diary. It is a mention of him in object
registration slips at the BM, and the presence of the photographs in the Museum’s
collections, that establish that Bob arrived safely in England. Whether his visit to
the BM was by invitation or was unsolicited we do not know, but our research has
presented an intriguing possibility: that the staff at the Museum used the opportunity
78
‘Bob, a native of Tarawa, Kingsmill Group, Aged 18’
of Bob’s visit to try to establish a better understanding of objects in the collection.
Annotated object registration slips which refer to him as ‘Mr Wood’s native’, contain
observations offered by Bob about objects thought to be from the Kingsmill Islands.
For example, the registration slip for object Oc.7280 notes “Mr [C.F?] Wood’s native
thought this not from the Kingsmills”. Whatever the motives of Museum staff at the
time, Bob’s story has become interwoven with the history of the objects he encountered
that day, including the coconut fibre armour he wore for the photograph.
It is likely, given the note on the registration slips, that Bob attended the BM with
Wood. It seems certain that he spent time with Wood’s family, as in a later letter to
his sister Mary, Wood references having employed a new “Rotumah boy (successor
to Bob)” (Letter from Charles Wood to Mary Wood, 1 April 1874). This suggests that
Mary was familiar with the ‘old Bob’ and is further indication of Wood’s proprietorial
attitude to Pacific Islanders. There is, however, another intriguing possibility, that Bob
was introduced to BM staff by a member of the Anthropological Society of London,
and that could indicate a more contentious background to the visit.
There are two carte de visites of Bob in the BM collection (Figure 5.1) both of
which were taken by Adamo Pedroletti on behalf of the Anthropological Society.
Pedroletti (1829-1881) was an Italian sailor turned photographer, who made images of
indigenous visitors to London (Charnock 1869: clxx). On 4 May 1869, it was reported
that Pedroletti held an exhibition of such photographs in his house and that he was
later appointed as photographer to the Anthropological Society of London (minutes of
council 18 May 1869). The carte de visites of Bob may have been used as calling cards,
accompanying Bob as he (was) toured around London. More likely, however, given
their production by the Anthropological Society, is that they were made to evidence
Bob’s ‘exotic’ status. The remaining photographs of Bob in the BM collection (Figure
Figure 5.5. Profile of Bob. Unknown
photographer. Oc.B96.28.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
79
Fighting Fibres
5.5) are clearly intended as anthropometric studies. In them, Bob is shown naked and
is depicted standing in four different full-body poses, alongside a measuring rod, and
seated in two portrait style images, one from the front and one from the side showing
the profile. Anthropometry was a tool used in the early days of the discipline of physical
anthropology to measure and categorise people into racial groups. The introduction
of photography into this methodology occurred in the late 1860s, as anthropology
sought to professionalise itself. Photography, it was believed, could provide an
objective, scientific truth (Edwards 1998: 27). In 1869, Thomas Huxley, an eminent
biologist and president of the Ethnological Society of London, set about devising a
photographic project that would use anthropometry to create, for the first time, a
uniform vision of the British colonial enterprise. On 26 July 1869 at 9.30am, Huxley
met with Pedroletti and arranged for him to take a series of 50 sample photographs of
indigenous people then residing in London (Bank 2006: 106). These photographs were
then sent to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Granville, with a set of instructions on how to
photograph “natives” (Huxley 12 August 1869). Huxley had been influenced by a series
of photographs commissioned by John Lamprey (Lamprey 1869), in which the subjects
were photographed against a grid. Huxley sought something even more precise,
however, and created a series of instructions to which each participant in the project
should adhere. In doing so, he sought to eliminate any glimmer of subjectivity and
neutralise the interpretive agency of the photographer. Essentially, Huxley was seeking
evidence that could be studied before it was too late, just as Wood had attempted to
document the ‘primitive native’ before their demise. Although the anthropometric
photographs of Bob were not part of the Huxley project, the handwritten inscriptions
on their reverse, which read “Bob, a native of Tarawa, Kingsmill Group, Aged 18”, are
the same as the inscriptions on the back of the Pedroletti carte de visites. This suggests
that both sets of images were taken at the same time and by the same photographer
during Bob’s visit to England. How the Museum acquired these images is unknown,
but it raises the possibility that Pedroletti or another member of the Anthropological
Society accompanied Bob on his visit and handed over the images to the Museum staff.
There is evidence that the anthropometric images for which Bob posed were
still being used almost 50 years later, when they appeared in the 1906 edition of The
Living Races of Mankind (Hutchinson 1906: 31) with the measuring instruments
cropped out. The inclusion of the photographs of Bob, who is listed in the book as
being a “native of Tarawa”, are further evidence of the perpetuation of such images
in ethnological research of the period. In this publication, Bob’s portraits are used to
illustrate a ‘typical’ Kingsmill Islander: a person who was described as being distinct
from the Eastern Polynesians by their “shorter stature, the greater development of hair
on the face, and the more elongated contour of the head, the latter feature indicating
an approximation to their Melanesian neighbours of the islands to the southwest” (Hutchinson 1906: 31). Wood seems to have tried to emulate this ‘scientific’
approach to racial taxonomy through his own photographic collections, and owned
albums featuring photographs of indigenous people from all over the world, seated or
standing, naked or semi-clothed, against a measuring rod. The people are not named
but their geographic locality is given. However, in one album (Figure 5.6) Wood has
juxtaposed images of various Pacific Islanders, some named, some labelled generically
80
‘Bob, a native of Tarawa, Kingsmill Group, Aged 18’
Figure 5.6. Portraits of Pacific Islanders in a page from one of Charles Wood’s photographic
albums. Unknown photographer. Courtesy and copyright Georgina Connaughton.
as ‘Rotuman’ or ‘Fiji girl’. For reasons about which we can only speculate, Wood has
juxtaposed these anonymised subjects with one of the carte de visites of Bob. Likewise
we can only hypothesise as to what Wood’s intentions had been in bringing Bob to
London, although it seems clear from this trail of evidence – direct and circumstantial
– that Bob became embroiled in contemporary debates about the nature of humanity
and what it meant to be ‘other’.
81
Fighting Fibres
Whether Bob was a willing or reluctant party in the portrayal of these various
guises is a moot point. As previously stated, it has provoked a debate about where the
agency lay in these photographic sessions. In particular, is the image of Bob in a suit of
coconut fibre armour from the Kingsmill Islands meant to depict a European version
of the fearsome Kingsmill Island warrior or, alternatively, was it a case of Bob taking
the opportunity to display the potency of his culture in material form? The truth is
we will never know. However, there are aspects of Bob’s story that suggest he had an
independence of spirit that might favour the latter interpretation. This conclusion is
reinforced by a letter from Wood to his sister Gertrude, when he reported that he
had dismissed Bob from his employ: “at Levuka I discharged Bob whose conceit and
impudence I could no longer put up with” (Letter from Charles Wood to Gertrude
Wood 13 December 1873). Bob’s dismissal seems to have been the end of his association
with Wood, and by April 1874, Wood had employed a new “Rotumah Boy” (Letter
from Charles Wood to Mary Wood, 1 April 1874).
What happened to Bob after 1873 is a mystery; however, one possible final
reference can be found in the book Pacific Tales by Louis Becke, published in 1897.
The dedication on the front is to “those olden days”, which implies Becke’s time in the
Pacific dated to some years before the book’s 1897 publication. In the text, a “Tarawa
Bob” is mentioned along with a “Rotumah Tom”. This Bob and Tom are described as
being brothers-in-law and mates aboard the Montiara, a trading schooner that cruised
among the islands of Micronesia. Freed from his association with Wood, it is tempting
to imagine that Tarawa Bob was, indeed, the man who travelled across the oceans to
London and whose image – dressed in the unique armour of his heritage – now resides
in the photographic collections of the British Museum, providing a valuable research
resource for future generations.
82
CHAPTER 6
Conserving Kiribati Armour
RACHEL HOWIE
Museum objects can be regarded as historical documents from which important
information relating to their specific biographies can be extracted (Caple 2000: 29). As
a conservator, you are trained to look closely at objects in order to try and understand
how they have been made and what they have been made from. Such information is
essential in order to formulate a plan for undertaking any conservation treatments or
repairs. For many museum conservators, however, finding the time to research other
aspects of an object’s history, such as its contextual significance and original usage,
is a challenge. In 2016, I was fortunate enough to be offered a research conservation
project, based at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) in Cambridge,
which allowed me to focus intensively on a suit of Kiribati armour from the Museum’s
collections (Figure 6.1). This particular suit had been selected for inclusion in the
exhibition The Island Warrior (2017) and required conservation assessment as well as a
suitable mount for display. Time spent researching the original context of the armour,
as well as the opportunity to compare it with other examples in UK institutions, guided
my approach to its conservation. In particular, it helped me decide when to intervene,
which treatments to use and, just as significantly, when to take no action at all.
The materials and construction of the armour
It is well documented that the plant fibre used to make Kiribati armour is coconut,
and that the black material used for the decorative elements is human hair (Kaeppler
2008: 133; Newell 2011: 114). In Cambridge, we were able to confirm this with staff
at the McDonald Institute for Archaeology. A scanning electron microscope (SEM)
and light microscope were used to examine samples of the plant fibre that, due to
its brittle nature, had become dislodged from the armour’s cuirass. The longitudinal
striations were deemed consistent with those found on coconut fibres (Figures 6.2
and 6.3). Coconut fibre string (te kora) was the main material used to make the cuirass,
overalls and upper body armour and was chosen because of its ready availability, as
well as for its strength, flexibility and its resistance to abrasion. Still used in the Islands
today, coconut fibre string is created using the fibres from the middle layer of the fruit
wall of the coconut (Norton 1990: 127). These fibres are dense and resistant to rot
83
Fighting Fibres
Figure 6.1. Armour on mannequin
(Z7034.1) and (Z7034.2-3), upper
body armour, 156cm (w) and overalls,
165cm (l). Porcupine fish helmet
(2011.93.3), 24cm (h), Tabiteuea,
Kingsmill Islands. Donated by Evert
Jan Brill before 1871. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017.
and seawater. To extract the fibres,
the husk is soaked in sea or fresh
water, beaten to loosen and remove
the fleshy tissue, and then dried
in the sun (Koch 1986: 187). The
processed fibres are then turned
into cords by women, who roll two
threads on the back of the thigh,
moving the palm of the hand in a
forwards and backwards motion.
New fibres are added to those being
rolled to make the cord longer.
These cords are then plaited or
twisted to make thick lengths of
string (Koch 1986: 169).
Human hair, which is used to
decorate the armour, is composed
of keratin, a tough, fibrous protein
material. It is stable in changes
of relative humidity (RH), but
is vulnerable to insect attack, light damage and poor handling (Kite 2015: 3). Using
a SEM it was confirmed that the black fibre used on the cuirass was, indeed, hair
of some sort (Figure 6.4) and with light microscopy it was confirmed as human
(Figure 6.5). Hair fibre has three distinct parts: the cuticle, the cortex and the medulla
(Kite 2015: 2). When it is analysed, the cuticle and medulla are the most important
aids for identification of species (Allen 2015: 109). Under the light microscope, the
medulla appeared to be amorphous in appearance, and its width was generally less
than one-third of the overall diameter of the hair shaft, indicating human origin. This
is distinct from the medulla in animal hairs, which is normally continuous, structured
and generally occupies an area of greater than one-third of the overall diameter of the
hair shaft (Deedrick and Koch 2004).
There are two main sections to the cuirass, the main body and the raised headguard.
To prevent the headguard from falling forward, this example has two supporting struts
attached to the front of the headguard and the shoulders of the main body. As the
coconut fibre cord is tightly wrapped around the struts, it is not clear whether they are
formed of wood or tightly packed fibres. In addition, two wooden poles wrapped in
two-ply twisted coconut fibre and human hair cord are attached to the reverse of the
84
Conserving Kiribati Armour
Figure 6.2. SEM image of coconut fibre on the
cuirass Z 7034.1. Photo: Catherine Kneale and
Dr Trish Biers. © Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 6.3. Microscopy image of coconut fibre on the
cuirass Z 7034.1. Photo: Dr Jennifer Bates. © McDonald
Institute for Archaeological Research, University of
Cambridge.
Figure 6.4. SEM of human hair on the cuirass Z
7034.1. Photo: Catherine Kneale and Dr Trish
Biers. © McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research, University of Cambridge.
Figure 6.5. Microscopy of human hair on the cuirass
Z 7034.1. Photo: Dr Jennifer Bates. © McDonald
Institute for Archaeological Research, University of
Cambridge.
headguard on each side. There are numerous examples of cuirasses that do not have
these poles and consequently the headguard slumps forward. When worn, the cuirass
encases the torso, overlapping at the front with cords to secure it in place.
The cuirass is created using long coconut fibre coils, which are bound together by
two-ply twisted fibre cord, interweaving between the coils. On the MAA cuirass, these
coils were laid horizontally and parallel to each other. The three-ply braided fibre coils
can be seen at the edges, where they turn and go back on themselves. This method
of construction means that the armour is both very heavy and very rigid, offering
effective protection to the warrior inside. The cuirass is decorated with twisted human
85
Fighting Fibres
hair cords, arranged in lozenge motifs. The edge of the cuirass is also decorated with
twisted coconut fibre and human hair.
There are many variations in the style and construction of Kiribati armour; however,
there is a general similarity between individual pieces. The overalls conserved for the
exhibition at MAA are of the distinctive style found in many museum collections. Two
plaited straps come up from the front of the chest and would have been worn over the
shoulders, being tied in a loop at the back. The MAA overalls, along with several other
examples found elsewhere, have a large hole in the crotch region. This might have been
deliberately placed so as to allow the wearer to relieve himself easily. Alternatively, it
might be as a result of damage from general wear and tear or from blows in battle. The
overalls and upper body armour were commonly made using a knotting technique,
with differences occurring in the size of the weave. Compared to the upper body
armour, the MAA overalls have large gaps between the knots (Figures 6.6 and 6.7). In
other examples, a finer cord is used, enabling a tighter weave. On occasion, the size
changes even within one piece or is altered deliberately to create a pattern (Figure 6.8).
An impressive and intimidating feature of Kiribati armour is the helmet made
from a hollowed out and dried porcupine fish. There are several types of porcupine
fish recorded as having been used for helmets, but the majority found in the British
Museum, for example, are listed as belonging to the family Diodontidae, with only
one identified as the Cyclichthys orbicularis species. A helmet from the Museum of
New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), is listed as probably being the Diodon
hystrix species, also of the Diodontidae family. After discussion with Oliver Crimmen,
from the Natural History Museum, and researcher Kat Szabo, the MAA helmet was
identified as also being from the Diodontidae family; most likely, the Diodon hystrix.
However, the particular species could not be confirmed absolutely (Crimmen 2016;
Szabo 2016). Some helmets, like the MAA example, are just the dried skin of the fish,
while others are reinforced with an additional internal structure.
Conserving the armour: to clean or not to clean
The armour was generally in a good, stable condition, but was covered in a layer of
museum dust. Each piece was dry cleaned using a brush and museum vacuum, with
netting over the top to catch any small pieces, and Groomstick (a natural rubber)
to remove the more ingrained surface particulates. Groomstick was used as it could
be moulded to a desired shape, and the tackiness could be reduced, by rolling it on
the back of the hand or by placing it in a fridge for a few hours. Smoke sponge was
considered but it was ruled out as it was too abrasive.
The overalls contained a number of holes along the sides and one on the chest.
What caused these holes is not clear, but they may be the result of physical damage to
the artefact while being worn in combat. Many of the holes are located along the sides
of the torso and legs, which could indicate contact with a sharp weapon. Interestingly
however, there does not appear to be any sign of blood. A hole located on the right side
of the chest might suggest that the warrior did not wear a cuirass. A drawing, made by
Alfred Agate during the United States Exploring Expedition, shows just such a warrior
in action (Figure 6.9). Repairing this hole might have been necessary to prevent further
damage; however, as the stability of the artefact was not compromised it was decided
86
Conserving Kiribati Armour
Figure 6.6. Weave on
overalls, Z 7034.3. Photo:
Rachel Howie. © Museum
of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
Figure 6.7. Weave on upper
body armour, Z 7034.2.
Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017.
© Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University
of Cambridge.
Figure 6.8. Weave changes on
overalls, Oc.8043. © Trustees
of the British Museum.
87
Fighting Fibres
to leave it in an unchanged state, as visible evidence of the object’s biography. The
knotting technique, used to create the overalls and upper body armour, was cleverly
designed to ensure that any holes that occurred during combat were halted at the next
knot, thus preventing them from unravelling and expanding. On the MAA armour, the
broken ends of the coconut fibre could have caught, as a consequence of handling. I
therefore took the decision to secure monofilament nylon netting over these ends, to
prevent this from occurring but without obscuring the historical damage (Figure 6.10).
To make them less noticeable the net was dyed using Lanaset™ dyes, which are designed
to be used on protein fibres but can also be used on nylon. These dyes were chosen
because of their proven fastness. As two of the holes along the legs would be visible
when the armour was on display, a dyed patch of habatai silk was also stitched to the
inside of the coconut fibre using 100% polyester ultra-fine thread. The repairs were
subtle, but could be easily identified upon closer inspection of the object.
Both the upper body armour and overalls had deep creases running along their
edges as a consequence of flat storage. These were relaxed using local humidification
with damp blotting paper and Sympatex, a waterproof, water-vapour-permeable
membrane. Sympatex brings the applied moisture as a vapour to the surface of the
object without the object actually coming into direct contact with the liquid.
On the cuirass a small number of the human hair bindings had come loose and were
beginning to unravel (Figure 6.11). These were secured using small pieces of tinted Japanese
tissue (tosa tengujo) with a 50:50 mixture of wheat starch paste and 4% methylcellulose in
deionised water (Figure 6.12). The tissue was tinted with acrylics, as, when dry, the pigment
Figure 6.9. Illustration of two warriors on Tabiteuea, from the United States Exploring
Expedition by Alfred Agate in 1841. © Smithsonian Institution.
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Conserving Kiribati Armour
Figure 6.10. Overalls Z 7034.3 being conserved. Photo: Rachel Howie. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 6.11. Binding hair on Z 7034.1 before
conservation. Photo: Rachel Howie. © Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
Figure 6.12. Binding hair on Z 7034.1
after conservation. Photo: Rachel
Howie. © Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
does not dissolve in water. If it is necessary to remove these repairs in the future, a small
amount of deionised water would not cause the pigment to run.
The cuirass had an unusual white discolouration on the coconut fibre (Figure 6.13)
which was also seen on several cuirasses in other collections. Initially, I was concerned
that it might be mould, as this commonly occurs on organic materials if stored in an
environment with RH 65% or higher. After liaising with other institutions that had
undertaken analysis on these deposits, it was identified as salt. In addition, under the
light microscope, the white bloom had a definite crystalline appearance, rather than
the characteristic fuzzy appearance of mould. Salt efflorescence occurs when soluble
salts dissolve upon exposure to moisture in the air. They then migrate through the
porous material and crystallise on the surface. Changes in the RH will trigger the
movement of soluble salts in and out of porous materials. During the manufacturing
process, the coconut fibres are soaked in sea or fresh water, so it may be that the salt is
present as a result of this. This would certainly explain its appearance on cuirasses in
other institutions. However, as the reason for the salt deposit on the MAA cuirass was
unclear, I decided not to remove it.
89
Fighting Fibres
Figure 6.13. Back of cuirass with
discolouration Z 7034.1. Photo: Josh Murfitt,
2017. © Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
When the porcupine fish helmet came
into the lab to be assessed, the surface
was covered in what appeared to be sand
(Figure 6.14). As Bence discusses in
Chapter 4 we know that helmets were often
buried in sand, and it is possible that this
material clinging to the side of the helmet
came from this process. Again, because the
sand particles are a material manifestation
of the helmet’s history, I took the decision
to leave them in situ. The same could
not be said for the accumulated museum
dust and dirt, however, and that had to
be removed. This was achieved by careful
use of a soft brush and conservation
vacuum. The ‘retention’ of the sand was
also a concern in another treatment. The
helmet’s ear guards were misshapen and
bent inwards into the cavity of the helmet
(Figure 6.15). Due to the rigidity of the skin they were fixed in shape but, for the
helmet to be displayed these areas had to be reshaped. There are a number of methods
used to achieve this, which range from localised humidification, to humidifying the
whole object in a humidity chamber (Doyal and Kite 2006). As it was only the flaps
that required reshaping, localised humidification was undertaken and the vapour
was applied using a combination of Sympatex sandwiches and a preservation pencil
connected to an ultrasonic humidifier. The helmet was humidified from the inside,
so that the sand on the outer surface was not dislodged. The treatment was successful
as the surface did not darken and the sand remained securely attached (Figure 6.16).
From a conservation perspective, the absence of something can be as important
as its presence, and I was curious as to why the MAA helmet had no internal lining.
Considering the abrasive qualities of the porcupine fish skin, it might be expected
that some form of padding would be beneficial to the wearer. Upon close examination
of the helmet, two cords were seen that knotted on the outside of the skin, before
threading through and hanging down inside the helmet. Perhaps these may originally
have been used to attach an internal lining that did not survive when the helmet was
collected or has subsequently become detached.
Further consideration of absences and presences came to the fore when we
prepared to mount the MAA armour for display. A number of museums in the UK
were consulted in order to gain a better understanding of mounts that had been used
elsewhere. Many institutions reported that they had been forced to create their own
90
Conserving Kiribati Armour
Figure 6.14. Sand on
porcupine fish helmet
2011.93.3, 24cm (h).
Tabiteuea, Kingsmill
Islands. Donated by Evert
Jan Brill before 1871.
Photo: Rachel Howie.
© Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge.
Figure 6.15. Porcupine fish helmet, 2011.93.3, after
conservation. Photo: Rachel Howie. © Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Cambridge.
Figure 6.16. Porcupine fish helmet, 2011.93.3,
after conservation. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge.
forms on which to mount the armour, because of the unusually narrow proportions
of the overalls. Although numerous suits of armour exist in museum collections for
researchers to examine, none of them can be experienced actually being worn on a
human body. Sean Mallon, Senior Curator at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa
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Fighting Fibres
Tongarewa has suggested that the proportions of the armour may be due to the
relatively small stature of I-Kiribati people at that time the armour was made or that
it was worn predominantly by teenagers and young men (Te Papa Tongarewa 2011).
The MAA overalls, for example, are very narrow and long. After discussions with
Proportion London, a company that produces conservation-grade mannequins, we
concluded that we needed to order a mannequin made for a six-year old boy. We then
had to customize it by significantly increasing its length to accommodate the armour.
The mannequin was then padded and shaped to obtain the desired dimensions. The
size of the mannequin posed some interesting questions about who, in fact, would have
worn this armour and how the coconut fibre might have become stretched with usage.
Further research into this fascinating issue is required.
According to the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic
Works (AIC), “the primary goal of conservation professionals is the preservation
of cultural property” for future generations (AIC 2017). When conservators join
the Institute of Conservation (ICON) they are governed by a code of conduct and
professional standards, and are expected to understand “the ethical basis of the
profession and the responsibilities of the conservation professional to cultural heritage
and to wider society” (ICON 2014). Ethical considerations play a huge part in deciding
what treatments to use, even those as simple as cleaning. Every stage, from creation
through to their present state in museum stores, is part of an object’s life history. Taking
this idea to the extreme, even the removal of museum dust, could be “considered an
act of vandalism” (Caple 2000: 91). However a build-up of dirt and dust can also be
harmful to objects and creates an attractive environment for pests. In addition, dust can
be abrasive, absorb moisture creating a humid environment, and can cause staining.
Conservators carefully weigh up the benefits of removing soiling products, which
can increase the stability of the object, versus the potential loss of information that
these products may contain. Although ethical concerns and the stability of the object
are always the priority, the opportunity to research the armour prior to commencing
treatment allowed me to make informed decisions about how to proceed. It was thus,
as a direct result of my research, that I removed the layer of particulate deposits from
long-term storage, but left in place the sand on the helmet and the white deposits on
the cuirass.
92
CHAPTER 7
Kiribati Weaponry
ALISON CLARK AND RHIAN WARD
Many of the collectors of coconut fibre armour featured in this book also acquired
items of weaponry from Kiribati. Indeed, the famous swords and daggers that are
edged with shark’s teeth are the most frequently represented object-type from Kiribati
found in museums worldwide (Figure 7.1). Although less well known, palm wood
clubs and spears with stingray barbs were also used by warriors (Figure 7.2). This
chapter provides an overview of the materials and the method of production for these
weapons which have a strong association with the armour and a ubiquitous presence
in Pacific collections.
The most comprehensive written accounts of Kiribati weaponry are those provided
by G.M. Murdoch in his 1923 article ‘Gilbert Islands Weapons and Armour’, and Gerd
Koch’s Material Culture of Kiribati (1986). Both authors provide typologies that divide
swords and other weapons into various categories, shapes and sizes. There is general
agreement across sources, and from oral histories, that these weapons were used for
inflicting physical harm but were not intended for killing an opponent (Finsch 1893;
Koch 1986; Maude and Maude 1981; McClure 1924; Montague 1921; Murdoch 1923;
Ratzel 1896).
Kiribati daggers and swords are made from palm wood with shark’s teeth lashed
onto the wood using coconut fibre string (te kora). The daggers are the smallest of
the weapons – some having a single row of teeth on one side, while others have teeth
on both sides. They were held in the palm of the hand and used to inflict wounds on
the hands of an opponent (McClure 1924: 236). Daggers are the only type of weapon
currently being made in the Islands and are popular tourist items (Figure 7.3).
The wood used in the making of these weapons would have come from felled
coconut palms, which were split into sections before being whittled and sanded to
achieve the desired shape (O’Riordan 2013). Marks found on shark’s teeth swords are
consistent with this method of working the wood. The teeth were removed from a dead
shark and small holes drilled into each individual tooth using a stone or, later, a metal
drill (Drew et al 2013). Unsurprisingly, shark’s teeth make very effective weapons
and are multifaceted. In other words they can pierce, crush and slice, whereas metal
weapons tend to perform only one of these actions (Moyer and Bemis 2016: 9).
93
Fighting Fibres
5 cm
10 cm
7.1
10 cm
7.2
7.3
Figure 7.1. Shark tooth dagger, E 1904.48 (Z 7052), 36cm (l). Purchased from Gerrard and
Sons from the collection of Captain Davis. Photo: Gwil Owen. © Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 7.2. Palm wood club, 2008.26, 82cm (l). Donated by Irene Beasley. Harry Beasley
purchased it from Gerrard and Sons, from the collection of Captain Davis. Photo: Gwil Owen.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 7.3. Shark tooth dagger, 2016.170, 34cm (l). Purchased by Alison Clark from Kiribati
in 2016 as part of a Crowther Benyon grant. Photo: Josh Murfitt. 2017. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
The swords, which usually measure between 60 and 120 centimetres in length,
conform to three types: those with a round central body that have four rows of shark’s
teeth set into each side; and those with a flat central body with two rows of teeth, one
row set into each edge. A third type, often referred to as a ‘trident’, is shorter and wider
than the swords and has teeth on each ‘branch’ or ‘arm’ of the weapon. Tridents would
have been carried by a warrior’s henchman or assistant. The armour-clad warrior
would have been carrying a long spear, measuring between three and six metres in
length (Murdoch 1923: 174; Maude and Maude 1981: 317). These spears were tipped
with a stingray barb or with rows of shark’s teeth (Gill 1885: 132).
The final item of Kiribati weaponry is the palm wood club. These clubs are almost
identical across museum collections. Each is approximately 60 to 80 centimetres
long, with a looped handle made from twisted coconut fibre string designed to slip
around the wrist. The clubs are smooth and polished, allowing the natural striations
of the wood to show through. None of the clubs feature carved designs and it has been
94
Kiribati Weaponry
Figure 7.4. Shark tooth branched spear or
trident, E 1907.603, 117cm (l) Purchased
with a donation from Professor Bevan.
Photo: Josh Murfitt. 2017. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University
of Cambridge.
suggested that this absence of designs
indicates that these clubs were less
valued than swords or daggers (Wilkes
1845: 84). Further accounts describe
the clubs being used in battle only when
weapons with shark’s teeth had been
broken (Murdoch 1923).
In 2017, a trident sword (Figure 7.4)
was featured in The Island Warrior
exhibition at the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA),
Cambridge, alongside a suit of armour
(see Chapter 6). As with the armour
itself, the weapon needed to undergo
conservation work before it could be
put on display. First, the trident had to
be stabilised in order to prevent further
decay, followed by research and testing
of the materials used to construct it, in
order to decide what treatments might
be appropriate. It had always been
assumed that the teeth used for such
weapons would have been taken from
one species of shark. Images of the
teeth were sent to Dr Kelly Richards
at the Department of Zoology at the
University of Cambridge for analysis
and identification. In particular, it was
hoped to establish whether the teeth used on the weapon were from species found
in the waters around Kiribati. The work carried out by Dr Richards confirmed that
the teeth belonged to sharks in the genus Carcharhinus, which are found in Kiribati.
Interestingly, she was also able to identify that teeth from two different species of shark
were present on the object. The teeth shown in Figure 7.5 are probably Carcharhinus
albimarginatus (silvertip shark) or Carcharhinus falciformis (silky shark), but may also
be Carcharhinus melanopterus (blacktip reef shark), Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos
(grey reef shark), or Carcharhinus cautus (nervous shark). The teeth shown in Figure
7.6 are probably Carcharhinus longimanus (oceanic whitetip shark) or Carcharhinus
amboinensis (pigeye shark), but may also be Carcharhinus leucas (bull shark). All
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Fighting Fibres
Figure 7.5 (left). Shark’s teeth on E 1907.603. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 7.6 (right, above). Shark’s teeth on E 1907.603. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 7.7 (right, below). SEM of human hair on E 1907.603. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
these can be found in Pacific waters (Richards 2016, pers. comm.; Florida Museum
2017a, b, c).
In addition, it was hoped to establish whether the bindings used on the weapon
were made of human hair or, alternatively, were dyed coconut fibre. To this end,
samples of the fibre were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). By
comparing the resulting images with samples of human hair, it was possible to confirm
that human hair was used to decorate this trident and, as a result, it seems likely that
this would also be the case in the bindings of other weapons (Figure 7.7).
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Kiribati Weaponry
10 cm
Figure 7.8. Unravelling human hair on E 1907.603. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 7.9. E 1907.603 after conservation. Photo: Rhian Ward. © Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Subsequent to this research, further conservation work was carried out, involving
the removal of surface dust and dirt, repairing the human hair cord, and supporting the
deteriorating palm leaf sword tips. The presence of museum dust on objects can cause a
variety of problems: hard particles can cause abrasion to the object when disturbed, and
thick layers of dust can cause discolouration and impair close examination. Furthermore,
dust can increase or even initiate decay due to its ability to hold moisture close to the
object, causing areas of high humidity (Tétreault 2011: 266). In this case it was deemed
beneficial to remove the dust and dirt that had accumulated on the object since its
accession into the Museum. This was carried out using Groomstick, a pH neutral form
of natural rubber. Unlike other cleaning materials such as sponges, Groomstick lifts dirt
off the surface rather than rubbing it off. This approach reduces the risk of scratching the
object, which can be caused by abrasive dirt when it is removed.
When the sword arrived in the conservation lab, it was noted that the human hair
binding was unravelling (Figure 7.8) and was at risk of being snagged. These loose
strands were secured back in place using tinted Japanese tissue paper (tosa tengujo)
and 5% methylcellulose adhesive in 75:25 IDA: deionised water (Figure 7.9). The
frayed palm leaf tips were treated in a similar way to prevent loss. This conservation
work ensured that the weapon could be safely displayed and its appearance was closer
to its original condition when it had been used in battle.
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Fighting Fibres
Weapons were some of the most frequently collected items during early encounters
between Europeans and Pacific Islanders. The legacy of these transactions is the
many thousands of examples now held in the collections of European museums. The
enduring appeal of Kiribati weaponry means that swords, tridents and daggers are
regularly selected for exhibition. However, due to their scale and the relative fragility
of their delicate bindings, they require careful monitoring, conservation and storage.
The new research outlined here has helped identify some of the specific materials
used to create these visually striking weapons. It is hoped these findings will assist the
important work of conserving objects that exert such a powerful hold on the public
imagination.
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CHAPTER 8
The Fibres That Connect Us: An Interview
KAETAETA WATSON, CHRIS CHARTERIS, LIZZY LECKIE
AND ALISON CLARK
Kaetaeta Watson is an I-Kiribati master weaver and artist from Tabiteuea, one of Kiribati’s
coral atolls. Chris Charteris is a New Zealand based jeweller, sculptor and artist whose
work takes inspiration from his I-Kiribati, Fijian and English heritage. Lizzy Leckie is a
weaver from Aotearoa New Zealand, who has worked with Maori and Kiribati weavers
learning traditional weaving techniques. In 2013, the three started working together
as part of Tungaru: The Kiribati Project, a New Zealand based initiative that explored
Kiribati material culture. In 2016, after meeting Alison Clark at the Festival of Pacific
Arts in Guam, they joined the Pacific Presences research project, based at the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), Cambridge. Led by a mutual research interest
in Kiribati armour, how it was made and used, and whether it could still be made, Clark
asked Watson, Charteris and Leckie to produce a new suit of Kiribati armour for the
exhibition The Island Warrior, displayed at the MAA from 4 April until 25 September
2017 (see Figure 8.5). As part of this project Watson, Charteris and Leckie researched
historic armour in museum collections in New Zealand, and came to the UK in 2017,
where they and Clark also visited museums in London, Glasgow, Cologne and Berlin,
where this interview was conducted on 13 April 2017.
Alison Clark: Creating a new suit of Kiribati armour has been an incredibly time
consuming project for you all, what do you feel you have learnt from it, and what
do you feel the process has revealed about the armour and how it was made?
Chris Charteris: The first thing is to acknowledge the many weeks or months of labour
that would have gone into producing the armour. Even just making the string
would have been a huge undertaking. For us, as we were using pre-prepared string,
that was a whole process we didn’t have to go through. So from the beginning, we
recognised that making the armour would have to have been a communal effort.
While we learned a lot about the practicalities of making the armour, there are
other aspects of the process that are still quite mysterious. For example, the magic
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Fighting Fibres
and rituals behind its production and the patterns which adorn it are still largely
unknown to us. But we are learning.
AC: Making the armour has involved a lot of research and you have all visited many
museum collections (Figure 8.1) and seen a variety of historic suits of armour.
Do you think that by looking at armour in collections you can get closer to
understanding what the cultural significance of the materials and designs used
might have been?
CC: First and foremost I think it comes down to what was originally available in
the environment. In Kiribati culture, birds, fish and other sea creatures have a
spiritual significance for different family groups – like totems – so I’m sure there
would have been a reference to those spiritual connections in the making of the
armour. In light of our research, we suspect that there was probably a common
set of designs or motifs that people used but that there was also an element of
creativity – the freedom to do something different. We now know that there
are a lot of different variations in terms of the patterns and designs but there
are also differences in form. For example, the cone shaped cuirass we saw at
the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin and at the Museum of New Zealand Te
Papa Tongarewa – I think there might only be three like that in the world. The
armour held in museum collections is like a library, it is an invaluable resource for
researchers like us. The fibres connect the past with the present.
AC: Could you explain how you went about selecting the materials and the methods
for constructing the new suit of armour?
Lizzy Leckie: We tried all sorts of fibres. We started by experimenting with various
samples but quickly realised that we needed a huge quantity of string, at least
400 metres! So, like people in Kiribati, we wanted to use what was around us
and what was easily available. We chose sisal, which is used to make ropes and
matting. Although it was plied, rather than the plaited string that would have
traditionally been used, it worked quite well. For that reason we used it for the
overalls. Also, sisal has a hairy texture, like coconut fibre, so we got a big bale of
it and made the overalls and arms. Initially, we tried using multiple strings. We
came up with a technique where every knot consisted of two strings joining and
then separating again. We were relying on our ability to look at images of historic
armour, deconstruct them in our minds and then reassemble them using new
materials. It was a process of trial and error but we got there.
Kaetaeta Watson: This project was an example of individual creativity meeting with
collaboration. Lizzy did one leg and I did one and we joined them (Figure 8.2).
I think that is one of the benefits of working together. We were able to talk and
compare as we went along. After a few weeks of making the overalls using multiple
lengths of sisal, I began thinking about the nets people use in Kiribati, for fishing.
Although I couldn’t remember how they were made, I knew that my nephew did.
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The Fibres That Connect Us: An Interview
Figure 8.1. Kaetaeta Watson and Chris Charteris studying the armour at Auckland Memorial
Museum. Photo: Lizzy Leckie, 2016.
Figure 8.2. Kaetaeta Watson and Lizzy Leckie making the overalls 2017.14.2. Photo: John
Watson, 2016.
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Fighting Fibres
So we went and spent a couple of days with him. He showed us the techniques he
knew and we progressed to using one single strand of sisal. This was much easier,
and that is how we made the upper body armour (Figure 8.3). So the overalls and
the upper body armour are made using two different techniques. My nephew did
a starting netting knot for me, but it was so neat and tight that my fingers became
sore when I tried to do it. I just couldn’t do it that way, so I made it looser. I did
the top bit first then the upper body armour afterwards which are joined in the
middle. I just left a neck hole and then joined the shoulders. It was fiddly but it
was fun and exciting and I definitely preferred the second knot, the netting one.
LL: For the cuirass, we used a manila rope for the core fibre before wrapping over it
with a nylon netting string. The roll we had was bright orange and we thought:
it’s too bright we can’t have that! So we dyed it brown, to resemble coconut fibre.
I started working on the cuirass using a metal needle and I was nearly in tears
because it was so difficult that it took me a day to complete just three rows. So
I decided not to make it so tight and I asked Chris to make me another needle
because the metal needle was really hard to use. He made some whalebone needles
and they really helped. Then we were able to manage a few hours a day and the
armour slowly grew (Figure 8.4). We started at the back at the bottom, making
it wide at first and then going up and joining in the diamond shapes. We looked
at examples in museums to work out how the headguard behind the head would
have been attached and added in extra cord for that. In total, the cuirass probably
took a couple of months to make and various people gave us a hand with it at
different times. Several members of the community contributed and that was a
really wonderful feature of the project. Once the armour got to a wearable size,
people could try it on, just to see how it felt and the balance of it. It was quite an
amazing feeling to have it on.
CC: To complete the costume we really wanted a fish skin helmet. The traditional
helmets were made from porcupine fish, but we don’t have those in our waters in
New Zealand, so we put the word out to our fisherman friend and through him
we managed to get hold of two pufferfish within the time we had available. Then
we made use of the internet to learn how to clean a pufferfish! We worked out
that you cut the head off and then you peel the skin away from the internal parts.
The spiky bit has quite a thick leathery membrane so you can pull the rest of the
flesh away from it, and it comes away quite cleanly. We removed the insides and
the head, which created the space where the wearer’s face would be. We soaked
the skin in bleach and salt to try and remove the smell, and we blew a balloon up
inside the skin so it would retain its shape. We then hung it out to dry, and in two
days it was sufficiently dry to allow me to drill some holes around the edge. Then
it was sent to Kaetaeta who made the lining from harakeke (New Zealand flax),
and wove in a shark tooth design along the front rim.
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The Fibres That Connect Us: An Interview
Figure 8.3. Chris Charteris and Kaetaeta Watson demonstrating the netting knot. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Figure 8.4. Lizzy Leckie demonstrating using the bone needle to make a cuirass. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017. © Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
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KW: I really wanted to make the lining with pandanus leaves, but the pandanus I had
was too old and hard so I chose harakeke, which I have worked with a lot. I also
made some thin coconut fibre string (te kora) to bind the edges using the holes
that Chris had drilled.
AC: Over the course of this project you have each spoken about the relevance and
importance of collaboration and community. Why has it been so important to you
to involve the wider community?
LL: For me, working with the community is the most important aspect of this whole
journey. That is what is living about this project: it’s what it has all been about.
CC: The making of the armour required us to engage with other people in the
community to get help and to share what we were doing. The good thing that
comes out of that is represented in the name that we gave to the new armour,
Kautan Rabakau (Figure 8.5), which means ‘to awaken’. To awaken the connection
to the ancestors and to the skills that have come from the past. Such awakenings
are the things that keep that part of your soul alive.
KW: As Chris said, it is about stepping back to move forward. Looking at what has
been done in order to go on and hopefully making a connection, not just for the
three of us, or even for my family, but for the Kiribati community as a whole. As
a Kiribati person I know there can be difficulties going into a community. There
are certain sensitivities that must guide the approach you need take. Sometimes it
can be frustrating but then, all of a sudden, you get a breakthrough and the whole
thing works. That is a great reward.
LL: Working with the communities in New Zealand has also been so valuable. The
sharing has been important. Meeting Kaetaeta’s extended family, that now live
in New Zealand, was great. They were excited about the project and keen to get
involved. Her family has incredible skills that they are willing to share.
CC: I think our involvement in the previous project, Tungaru: The Kiribati Project, has
been important too, it showed our commitment. We are at a stage where critical
skills are getting lost, and in one generation you can lose a whole skill-set and it
is crucial to try and keep some of those skills alive. Not just because you can, but
because they are important, and useful.
AC: The image of a warrior wearing coconut fibre armour has become iconic but what
do you think it means for I-Kiribati people today?
KW: For me it is just a tourist thing unless there is some kind of understanding behind
it. My impression is that for many people it is just a tourist attraction. People are
buying t-shirts (Figure 8.6) with the image on, but what are they buying them for?
Is it because it’s a warrior? I would like to ask them what impression they think it
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The Fibres That Connect Us: An Interview
Figure 8.6 (right). Kiribati warrior t-shirt,
2016.166, designed by Barane Iererita.
Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. © Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge.
Figure 8.5 (left). Suit of armour, Kautan Rabakau (to awaken), made of manila rope, nylon
netting string (dyed brown). Cuirass 2017.14.1, 86cm (h), overalls 2017.14.2, 59cm (l), upper
body armour 2017.14.3, 135cm (w) and porcupine fish helmet 2017.15, 27cm (h). All made by
Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and Kaetaeta Watson, 2016-2017. Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017.
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
gives of Kiribati. Also, its popularity relates to how unique it is. No other islands
have armour like this and that must be part of its attraction.
CC: Just like the Kiwi bird has come to represent New Zealand, the armour has come
to represent Kiribati, because there aren’t many other images you can pick out
that are a uniquely Kiribati thing. It may be to do with cultural pride too and it
is probably up to this generation to re-define what it means for people within
Kiribati. The warrior image could be re-purposed for contemporary debates. For
example, if you are talking about climate change, then maybe it could be used as
a means to symbolise the fight against that.
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KW: We I-Kiribati are a very independent people and we live off the resources that
are around us. But if we are warriors fighting against anything, then it is climate
change. I think the image of the warrior and the armour should be used for that.
AC: Finally, Kiribati has become synonymous with climate change. You have all
mentioned the potential of the image of the warrior to be used in climate change
awareness both in Kiribati and internationally, could you briefly discuss how it
could be used and how you think climate change is impacting on Kiribati cultural
heritage?
KW: Kiribati armour isn’t just about warfare, it is about materials too. It is made from
coconut trees and if these trees aren’t there or are not bearing fruit anymore we
can’t use coconut fibre string anymore. Our traditional skills are and will be
affected by global warming as Kiribati people use the materials provided by the
environment they live in. If it’s not there they can’t do those things anymore. If
I-Kiribati have to be transported to another country because of climate change
the Kiribati culture could disappear. We need to make an effort now to maintain
cultural skills and to carry them with us to where we are, wherever that may be.
In transporting the whole of Kiribati into another country it may be safer for the
population but at the same time it will mean that a new Kiribati culture will be
developed. That is why it is important now to record all the skills and knowledge
we have of how we were and how we are now.
LL: As a symbol, one way that the warrior can be used is as a guardian that protects
and preserves what is precious: Kiribati culture. Because the armour is made from
materials gathered from the land and ocean it automatically speaks of Kiribati
resourcefulness and sustainability, which are ways of life that we all we need to
adopt in the fight against climate change.
KW: Whilst the image of the warrior is a useful tool, it cannot be just about the warrior
alone. The image needs to stand for a strong Kiribati voice that has the energy and
the attitude, like the warrior, to fight not just in the sense of warfare but to fight
against climate change and to speak out to the world about what Kiribati is facing.
That would be great if that could happen.
This interview is an abbreviated version of the full interview, which will be published in
Carreau, L. et al. 2018. Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums. Leiden:
Sidestone Press.
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CHAPTER 9
Provenance
COMPILED BY KATE ADAMS, POLLY BENCE,
ALISON CLARK AND GEOFF RUBENSTEIN
EDITED BY COLIN ADAMS
One of the major challenges facing museums in the 21st century is the need to examine
more critically the provenance of the objects in their collections. There is increasing
pressure - not least from originating communities - for museums to make explicit
the circumstances of acquisition and thus allow audiences to be drawn into, and
comprehend, something of these interactions. Uncovering the diverse and complex
histories of collections of Kiribati armour has been a priority for our research team
and, as a result, we have assembled short biographies of almost all the collectors of
these objects held in UK museums. This research has revealed the vast interconnected
network of explorers, colonial officials, missionaries, traders, soldiers, whalers,
collectors and dealers that caused these objects to leave their place of origin and be
accessioned into European and North American metropolitan museums.
In taking this approach, we have been mindful of curator Mark Elliott’s warning that
museums must be “wary of over-emphasising the stories of ‘dead white men’” (2017:
10). However, we consider that there is positive value to be gained by engaging with
these characters and their role in collections. Indeed, we believe that, taken together,
these biographies offer particular insights into the complex dynamics and motivations
involved in the collecting of armour. If museums still connote ‘colonial dustiness’
(Thomas, 2010: 6), perhaps a more open-minded approach to provenance can help
blow away some of the cobwebs of history.
Edgar Leopold Layard provides an example of how the interplay between object
biographies and collector biographies can lead to a better understanding of acquisition
histories. On first impressions, Layard could be dismissed as a quintessential ‘colonial
collector’. His family had a history of working as colonial administrators and Layard
himself was sent to Fiji in the 1870s to produce a report for the Colonial Secretary. Yet,
he was also a scientist whose career choices were influenced by his desire to travel and
his ambition of becoming a naturalist. Indeed, it was his passion for nature and for
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collecting flora and fauna that led him to acquire artefacts such as the coconut fibre
cuirass now held in Manchester Museum. To view Layard exclusively through the lens
of a ‘colonial project’ would be a distortion. The same may be true of the missionary
the Rev. George Turner and his family, who lived for decades in the Pacific Islands and
acquired armour now held in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. While these objects
are, arguably, the material manifestation of long-standing reciprocal relationships,
those acquired by John Gould Veitch during a brief voyage through the Pacific Islands
in 1865 clearly evidence a more pecuniary dynamic.
If we better understand the nuances of these object histories and personal biographies,
then we begin to create more sophisticated narratives about the nature of specific
transactions that help account for the agency and motivations of Islanders. However, the
combining of fieldwork with Islander knowledge and histories is also vital. Thus, we are
pleased to be able to include in this chapter a named I-Kiribati maker, Tebeioo, who likely
created a cuirass now held in the collections of the British Museum. This association was
uncovered as a result of a meeting between Tebeioo’s descendant, Taakebu, and Alison
Clark in Kiribati in 2016, and also through the existence of a photograph of this cuirass
being worn during the visit of Edward Henry Meggs Davis and HMS Royalist, to the
Islands in 1892 (see Figure 9.1). The coming together of these threads of research is
a tantalising example of what might be possible given the opportunity for sustained
interactions between Islanders and European Museums.
The most obvious differentiation in collectors is between those who travelled to the
Pacific themselves and those who collected from the UK, with the latter being more
likely to be dealers (such as Wellington Thompson, a dealer in arms and armour) or
those who had varied collections of ‘exotic’ objects often purchased from such dealers.
Harry Beasley is one who collected a range of artefacts from a variety of sources,
eventually amassing a large enough collection to open his own ethnographic museum.
Likewise, for Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, coconut fibre armour was simply
part of a much larger ethnographic collection which went on to form the basis of the
Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM).
Those who collected coconut fibre armour while travelling or resident in the Pacific
were for the most part either colonial officials, missionaries, mariners or naturalists
of some ilk. Despite the disparate nature of the collectors, there are significant
connections between them; many of the colonial officials knew each other – Sir Arthur
Gordon helped to advance the career of William MacGregor, appointing him to be
the Chief Medical Officer of Fiji, for example. Some colonial collectors also impacted
on the policies of the British government in the Pacific region; such as Edgar Layard
who co-authored the report that led to the annexation of Fiji in 1874 and which saw
Arthur Gordon appointed as the first Governor. We can also assume that dealers and
auctioneers were aware of each other, particularly those who focused on one genre of
artefact, in this case weaponry. And with the London Missionary Society being the
main religious organisation operating in the Pacific region at this time, it is inevitable
that there was an information exchange between those missionaries who collected
coconut fibre armour: this is evidenced by the correspondence between them.
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Provenance
It would be easy to assume that once pieces of coconut fibre armour arrived in the
UK this was the end of their journey, however, there are numerous examples of armour
subsequently changing hands. Henry Tufnell gathered his collection while travelling
alongside William MacGregor and after his death his collection was merged with that
of MacGregor’s and passed to Henry Anson who in turn bequeathed it to the PRM.
Much like the collectors themselves, the armour became embedded in a network of
connections of individuals and institutions.
Tebeioo
Maker of coconut fibre and ray skin cuirass in the British Museum
Only one piece of historic armour held in a UK museum can be associated with a named
maker: a unique cuirass with a panel of porcupine ray skin, acquired by the British
Museum (BM) in 1904, from the collection of Captain Edward Davis. It is believed to
have been made by Tebeioo, the last known maker of armour, from the Island of Beru.
In an interview given in 2016, Tebeioo’s granddaughter, Taakebu, suggested that her
ancestor had made the cuirass with the ray skin and may even be the man shown wearing
it in a photograph taken by a member of the Davis voyage, in 1892. As particular skills
and knowledge were kept within families, it is possible that members of Tebeioo’s family
had been making armour for generations. Tebeioo himself, or a descendant with the
same name, is known to have made a suit of armour that dates to 1957 now held in the
Figure 9.1. An I-Kiribati
man wearing armour made
by Tebeioo, 1892. Photo from
the voyage of HMS Royalist.
Copyright Fiji Museum.
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Fighting Fibres
Kiribati Cultural Centre and Museum. Information in the Cultural Centre states that
Tebeioo was from Nukantewaa village, on Beru, and that he made the suit as part of the
centenary celebrations of the American Board of Missions held on Abiang that year.
Working in the 1950s, this Tebeioo is believed to have been the last maker of traditional
armour and it is likely, therefore, that he also made the cuirass presented to Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, two years later when he visited Beru in 1959. This cuirass is now part
of the Royal Collection, cared for by the British Museum.
Balfour, Henry (1863-1939)
Donor of a porcupine fish helmet in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Balfour was the only son of Lewis and Sarah Balfour, née Comber. He was educated at
Charterhouse School in Surrey and then studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College,
Oxford. In 1887 he married Edith Wilkins, the only daughter of Robert Francis Wilkins,
a donor to the PRM. During the construction of the Museum one of Balfour’s tutors
offered him a year’s work, “making little drawings, writing and typing out very neat
labels, writing catalogue descriptions”. Balfour quickly began negotiating for a permanent
position and by 1889 he was appointed Sub-Curator. In late 1890 he was made curator, a
position he held until his death, aged 75. Over the course of his career Balfour arranged,
rearranged and expanded the museum’s collections. He wrote many scholarly articles
and published a book entitled The Evolution of Decorative Art. Beginning in the 1890s
he taught anthropology at Oxford, influencing generations of students. Balfour was an
avid traveller who worked primarily as a natural scientist. Many of his voyages related
to the study of whales and whaling. Balfour was a good networker who was always keen
to meet other curators and local colonial officials on his travels. He also had a voracious
appetite for collecting ethnographic and archaeological objects and amassed a very large
collection, being the second-biggest donor to the Museum after Pitt-Rivers himself.
Balfour was President of the Royal Anthropological Society (of which several of our
collectors were members), the Museums Association, the Folklore Society and the Royal
Geographic Society. He was also a fellow of the Royal Society.
Beasley, Harry Geoffrey (1881-1939)
Donor of a waist band, a coconut fibre helmet in the British Museum, a coconut fibre
helmet, cuirass and body armour in the Pitt Rivers Museum and a cuirass in the World
Museum, Liverpool
Born in Kent in 1881, Harry Beasley was a privately wealthy collector and curator, who
worked as a brewer, having inherited the North Kent Brewery. Beasley’s passion for
collecting began when he was just thirteen and he acquired two clubs from Solomon
Islands. In 1914 he became a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the same
year he was married to Irene Marguerite and together they continued to expand the
collection, buying from auction houses, museums, fellow collectors and missionaries.
In 1928 the couple moved to Cranmore House in Kent and set up the Cranmore
Ethnographic Museum, which eventually housed over 6,000 objects from around the
world. The main focus of their collection was artefacts from the Pacific; however, they
also collected items from Asia, Africa and North America. Beasley died in 1939 from
complications associated with diabetes. During the war, the collection was housed at
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Provenance
the British Museum, which was fortuitous because Cranmore House was bombed in
1941. In 1944 Irene offered part of the collection as a donation to the British Museum
and the rest was dispersed to various museums and institutions over the following
years by Irene and her daughters.
Boyd, Juliana Fenwick (1846-1892)
Collector of body armour in the Great North Museum: Hancock
Juliana was the daughter of Edward Fenwick Boyd, a notable industrialist, and Ann.
Edward played a substantial role in the formation of the North of England Institute
of Mining and Mechanical Engineers and became its fourth president in 1869. Boyd’s
mother died in 1861 and she became her father’s companion. She had a wide range
of interests, being an avid collector of books, china and furniture. Boyd had a strong
interest in the history of the north of England. She was a keen antiquary and genealogist
and was a Fellow of the Antiquarian Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Boyd published
a work on Thomas Bewick, the famous wood engraver and natural history author,
entitled Bewick Gleanings, which she dedicated to her father who had first gifted her
a copy of Bewick’s works. The work contains a biography of Bewick and his pupils
and was last reprinted in 1973. Boyd’s estate contained a large number of examples of
Bewick’s work. Following her father’s death in 1889, Juliana decided to embark upon
a period of travel, which had been recommended for her nerves. In August 1890 she
sailed to Melbourne, visiting Victoria and Tasmania before travelling to New Zealand
where she explored both the North and South Islands, at least partially on horseback.
From New Zealand she ventured on to Fiji and many other islands in the South Pacific.
There she amassed an extensive collection of ethnographic objects including Maori
carvings, Fijian clubs and the coconut fibre armour which now resides in the Great
North Museum. Juliana fell ill before her return to England and died on 10 January
1892 in Auckland, New Zealand.
Brill, Evert Jan (1812-1871)
Donor of a cuirass, body armour and a porcupine fish helmet in the Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Brill was born and died in the Dutch city of Leiden, which boasts the first
ethnographic museum in Europe, established in 1837, and the oldest university in
the Netherlands, founded in 1575. From the age of 17, Brill worked alongside his
father in the publishing house Luchtmans and specialised in the fields of theology,
oriental languages and ethnography. Luchtmans had close links with the university,
which was a major centre of studies in these subject areas. In 1848, Brill became
the owner of the company and changed its name to E.J. Brill. In order to cover his
new financial obligations, Brill liquidated the entire stock he had inherited at a
series of auctions that took place between 1848 and 1850. He went on to establish
an international reputation for his company as a publisher of academic works across
a wide range of fields. It is not known how he acquired the coconut fibre armour
now held in Cambridge, however his role as head of E.J Brill would almost certainly
have brought him into contact with leading figures at the National Museum of
Ethnography (Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde).
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Chamberlain, Herbert (d. 1904) and Walter (1847-1920)
Collectors of a cuirass in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Members of the prominent Birmingham family, Herbert and Walter were the younger
brothers of Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), who was mayor of Birmingham from 1873 to
1876, and Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 to 1903. Walter and Herbert were also
uncles to both Austen Chamberlain (Foreign Secretary 1924-1929) and Neville Chamberlain
(Prime Minister 1937-1940). Although they had some interest in politics, Walter and Herbert
both chose careers in business and neither entered public office. Upon their retirement in
1874 they travelled the world and collected together. They voyaged to Canada, where they
both met and married Canadian women. From September to December 1877, they spent time
travelling in Fiji and upon leaving purchased the island of Naitauba from its first recorded
European owner, William Hennings. Herbert and Walter owned Naitauba until 1899 when
they sold it back to Hennings at a loss, having failed to make a success of a cotton and coconut
plantation on the island. The collection of Herbert and Walter was passed on to Herbert’s son,
Norman. Norman Chamberlain was an extensive traveller himself and upon his death he
bequeathed a variety of material to Birmingham museum. Norman was killed in 1917 during
the Battle of Cambrai in the First World War and this event had a profound impact upon his
cousin, Neville Chamberlain whose reluctance to enter into another war in 1939 has become
an important part of British history. It seems plausible that Henry and Walter acquired the
cuirass during their time in the Pacific.
Chris Charteris (1966 - )
Maker of new armour in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and
a helmet in the Horniman Museum
Chris Charteris was born in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a jeweler, sculptor and
artist whose work takes inspiration from his I-Kiribati, Fijian and English heritage.
He is passionate about making new innovative works that reflect the present yet are
deeply rooted within past traditions. His work can be found in a number of private
and public collections including the British Museum, the Museum of New Zealand Te
Papa Tongarewa and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge. In
recent years he has been researching museum collections of Kiribati armour and has
created various works that are in dialogue with these historic artefacts. His most recent
creation, a 21st century interpretation of a Kiribati helmet, was commissioned by the
Horniman Museum, London.
Christy, Henry (1810-1865)
Donor of armour to the British Museum
Quaker, businessman and textile manufacturer, Henry Christy had the funds to amass
a vast collection of botanical specimens and, later, ethnographic objects. His interest
in other cultures developed as a result of the Quaker’s involvement in promoting the
abolition of slavery and the protection of Indigenous peoples in British colonies. From
the age of 40, he began to travel abroad and undertook expeditions to North America,
Cuba, Mexico and across Europe. Christy was elected to the Royal Society in 1865 but
died before he could take his place there. The bulk of his large collection was offered
to the British Museum by the trustees of his estate, which included Curator Augustus
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Provenance
Figure 9.2. Lizzy Leckie, Alison Clark and Chris Charteris, 2017. Photo by Josh Murfitt. ©
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Wollaston Franks. Christy also left a sum of money (used to establish the Christy Fund)
that allowed for the occasional purchase of important collections or individual objects.
Clark, Alison (1984-)
Collector of gauntlet and facilitator of new armour in the Cambridge Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology
Born in St Albans, England, Alison Clark gained a joint BA (Hons) in History of
Art and Architecture and English Literature at the University of Reading in 2006. In
2007, she completed a MA in Arts of Africa, Oceania and America at the Sainsbury
Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, followed by an AHRC funded PhD in
Australian Studies with the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King’s College,
London and the British Museum. Both her Masters and her PhD (2013) focused on the
Indigenous Australian collections at the British Museum. Later in 2013, Clark became
Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
University of Cambridge on a European Research Council funded project Pacific
Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums. She also curated the MAA exhibitions
Antipodes: Cut Apart (2016) and The Island Warrior: Coconut Fibre Armour from
Kiribati (2017). Clark is Editor of the Journal of Museum Ethnography. Her current
research examines the contemporary resonance of HMS Royalist (1890-1893) in the
Pacific; and the revival of particular cultural practices in Kiribati, including examples
of modern-day making of coconut fibre armour. In 2016 and 2017, Clark travelled to
Kiribati, visiting the islands of Tarawa, Beru and Abemama. In 2016, Clark began a
collaborative project with artists Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and Kaetaeta Watson to
investigate the feasibility of making contemporary examples of Kiribati armour.
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Figure 9.3. Admiral Edward Davis.
Courtesy of Bexhill Museum.
Davis, Admiral Edward
Henry Meggs (18461929)
Collector of two cuirasses and two
porcupine fish helmets in the British
Museum and a porcupine ray
skin waist band in the Horniman
Museum
Born in Galway, Ireland, Davis
commanded the Australia-based
third class cruiser HMS Royalist
between 1889 and 1893. During
this period he patrolled the Western
Pacific, visiting the New Hebrides
(now Vanuatu), New Caledonia,
New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji,
the Marshall Islands and the Gilbert
and Ellice Islands (now Kiribati and
Tuvalu). His voyages were divided
into three distinct periods, each with
particular aims. The first trip centred on the New Hebrides and was operated under the
auspices of the Anglo-French Joint Naval Commission. The Islands had been declared a
neutral territory by France and Britain, and Davis spent most of his time maintaining law
and order, addressing conflicts over land and removing arms sold by traders to Islanders.
For his second assignment, Davis was instructed to establish law and order in Solomon
Islands and New Guinea after the deaths of several European traders in the region.
He spent approximately a year conducting significant punitive expeditions among the
Islands. The third voyage visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and, briefly, the Marshall
Islands. Davis declared the Gilbert Islands a British Protectorate in 1892. During his
four-year assignment, Davis collected 1,499 objects, of which 259 were from the Gilbert
Islands and included three cuirasses, five helmets, five pieces of body armour, three belts
and 31 weapons. These objects are now held in museums across the UK and mainland
Europe. In 1894, Davis returned to his wife and children in Bexhill, England, and sold his
collection to help fund his retirement in 1905. He continued to play a role in the Royal
Navy and was made an admiral in 1908. Davis also helped to run his local museum in
Bexhill until he fell to his death from a window at his home on 6 October 1929.
Davis, Dr Joseph Barnard (1801-1881)
Collector of overalls in the British Museum
Remembered primarily as a craniologist and collector of human remains, Davis was
born in York. He obtained his medical qualification in 1823, having studied anatomy
under Joshua Brookes at his private school. In 1862 he graduated MD at the University
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Provenance
Figure 9.4. Portrait of Joseph Barnard Davis.
Lithograph by R.J. Lane. © Wellcome Library,
London.
of St Andrews. He began his medical career as a
ship’s surgeon on a whaling voyage to the Arctic
seas and later had a medical practice located in
Staffordshire. Davis’ transition from medical
practitioner to physical anthropologist can be
traced through his notebooks. They begin with
descriptions of medical conditions he found
interesting and are quickly transformed into
rigorous notes on the appearances of those
he dealt with and definitions of their racial
categories. He started to collect remains, mostly
skulls. One of his earliest acquisitions was the
skull of a polar bear that had been killed in
Greenland in 1820. Davis bought skulls and other remains from fellow collectors –
often medical men like himself – and supplemented this by collecting remains during
his travels. By 1867 his collection numbered 1,474 items. Davis was a polygenist
and his overarching goal for his collection was that it should prove the theory that
different races had separate origins. His collection also contained ethnographic and
archaeological objects, portraits and paintings of Indigenous people and a large
anthropological library. Davis had as particular interest in Indigenous Australians and
Pacific Islanders. In 1867 he published a catalogue called ‘Thesaurus Craniorum’. No
information exists to explain how he came to acquire the armour.
Dawson, Thomas (1811-1895) and Higgins, Charles Longuet
(1806-1855)
Possible collectors of a piece of shoulder armour in the British Museum
Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire is a priory but was once a country house which dates
from the early seventeenth century. It was formerly the private residence of John and
Theresa Higgins who passed it down to their son, Charles Longuet Higgins (18061885), a philanthropist and gentleman who financed the building of a school, church
and cottages in the village of Turvey. Charles amassed a collection of ethnographic
objects largely from one Christie’s sale held in 1851. Nearly 40 years after that auction
had taken place, two members of staff from the British Museum, Charles Hercules
Read and James Edge-Partington, visited Turvey Abbey and met with Higgins’ widow.
Helen Eliza Higgins was the daughter of Mr Thomas Burgon, an old colleague of
another BM staff member, Augustus Wollaston Franks. In 1866 Franks had founded
the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography and was on a
crusade to fill his department with objects from around the world, using much of his
own private wealth. During their visit, Read and Edge-Partington made detailed notes
on the collection, though they did not acquire anything at that time. In one of his
notebooks, held in the archives at the BM, Franks noted that Charles Longuet Higgins
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had bought most of his collection at the Thomas Dawson sale, and that the objects were
likely to “be interesting as collected a long time ago”. The catalogue for the Christie sale
in 1851 advertised the objects as being from:
The Extensive Museum, of Thomas Dawson, Esq., of Grasmere, Cumberland;
including the War and Domestic Implements, Idols, Costumes, etc., from
the Islands of New Caledonia, New Zealand, Society, Sandwich, Friendly,
Marquesas, and Soloman’s Archipelago; many of them brought by the
“Dromedary”, sloop-of-war, and the “Driver”, as well as from the Collections
of Captain Cook and Sir Ashton Lever. Also A Few Specimens of Antiquities,
from the Collections of Belzoni and Mr. Salt
It is not possible to establish the history of how Thomas Dawson amassed this
range of artefacts, though something is known about his background. He was born on
6 June 1811 in Salford, Lancashire, and was the son of a draper who owned a number
of businesses and properties in the Manchester area. At the age of just seven when his
father died, Thomas inherited a number of properties and eventually became a man
of substantial independent means. He gained a BA and a MA in Law at Cambridge,
although he never practised. In 1834 he married into the wealthy Aspinall family and
purchased the house Allan Bank in Grasmere, Cumbria. Dawson had three daughters
with his wife Martha and in 1849 the family relocated to a village near Taunton in
Somerset. It is likely that his collection was housed at Allan Bank for a time, before it
was sold at auction following the move to Somerset. Many of Thomas Dawson’s objects
can be found in museum collections around the UK and the world.
Douglas, John (1828-1904)
Collector of a cuirass in the British Museum
Born in 1828 in London, Douglas was the seventh son of Henry Alexander Douglas
and his wife Elizabeth Dalzell. His parents died in 1837 and he was taken in by his
aunts in Dumfriesshire. Douglas was educated at Edinburgh Academy, Rugby and the
University of Durham. In 1851 he emigrated to Australia with his brother Edward,
where he was initially employed as a gold fields commissioner. Douglas went on to
have a long career as a local and regional politician in Australia, initially in New South
Wales and culminating in his appointment as the seventh Premier of Queensland
from 1877-1879. In 1885 he was appointed government resident and magistrate on
Thursday Island off the coast of Queensland. For nearly three years from 1886-1888
he was a special commissioner for the Protectorate of British New Guinea. He died on
Thursday Island in 1904 and his collection of items from Australia and Melanesia was
acquired by the British Museum.
Eastman, Reverend George Herbert O.B.E. (1881-1974)
Collector of a cuirass and body armour in the Horniman Museum and a complete suit of
armour in the World Museum, Liverpool
Eastman was born in Long Melford, Suffolk to a father who was the Congregational
minister of Melford Chapel. In the 1911 census Eastman was described as a Divinity
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Provenance
Figure 9.5. Rev. George
Herbert Eastman O.B.E.
and his wife Winifred
Eastman from a LMS
exhibition in 1957.
Courtesy of Aidan
Eastman.
Student. He married Winifred Grimwade and in 1913 they left England for Rarotonga in
the Cook Islands where he began his work as a missionary with the London Missionary
Society. Together they ran the LMS mission in Rarotonga from 1913 to 1918 and Eastman
began compiling a Rarotongan dictionary, which was due to be published in 1918 but was
delayed for many years. In 1918 the couple were posted to the Gilbert Islands mission in
Beru, taking over from Rev. Goward and his wife Emmeline. Eastman was more liberal
than the man he succeeded and was prepared to negotiate with the government over
rules to control Islander dancing, which his predecessor had worked to establish. He was
a contemporary of Arthur Grimble, though he was not impressed by Grimble’s fondness
for immersing himself in Island culture. As well as collecting extensively in the Cook
Islands and the Gilbert Islands, the Eastmans established a number of schools in the
Islands, and the George Eastman High School remains on Nonouti. The couple were
evacuated after the Japanese invasion in 1942 but returned to Beru from 1944 until 1947.
Eastman received an OBE in 1948 and in the same year published a book on Gilbertese
vocabulary, after which the couple retired to Swanage, Dorset.
Elphinstone, William Butler Fullerton, later Lord
Elphinstone (1828-1893)
Donor of a cuirass in National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh
William Butler Fullerton Elphinstone became the 15th Lord Elphinstone in 1861
and the first Baron Elphinstone in 1885. He was the fourth son of the Hon. William
Elphinstone, who had a 70-year career with the British East India Company. In 1864
Lord Elphinstone married Lady Constance Euphemia Murray. He was elected a Scottish
Representative Peer in 1867. He served as a Lord-in-Waiting (essentially government
whip acting in the House of Lords) under Disraeli from 1874 to 1880 and then Lord
Salisbury from 1885 to 1886. Upon succeeding to the title in 1861, he completely
redesigned the family estate of Carberry Tower in East Lothian. He was succeeded by
his son, Sidney Elphinstone. National Museums Scotland collections contain a number
of artefacts donated by the Elphinstone family, including a cuirass of coconut fibre
armour from Kiribati donated in 1887 by the 15th Lord. It is, however, unclear how
these artefacts were acquired.
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Franks, Sir Augustus Wollaston (1826-1897)
Donor of armour in the British Museum
Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Franks began his career at the British Museum in 1851.
He became Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography (1866-1896).
Using his own personal wealth, and the Henry Christy Fund, he greatly enhanced
the Museum’s ethnographic collections. As was common practice at the time, Franks
frequently engaged in trading so-called ‘duplicate’ objects with other museums in
Europe and beyond. This practice, which involved the swapping of objects already
represented in an institution’s collections for more desirable pieces, further complicates
the tracing of provenance. During research for this book, several pieces of armour were
located in the British Museum that were labelled as duplicates. If an opportunity had
arisen to exchange them, then Franks might have authorised their movement on to a
new home. Franks died in London and is buried in Kensal Green cemetery, London.
Gordon, Sir Arthur Charles Hamilton, later Lord Stanmore
(1829-1912)
Collector of armour in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Born in London and the son of Lord Aberdeen, who was British Prime Minister from
1852-1855, Gordon was a politician, colonial governor and latterly a leading businessman
with phosphate interests in the Pacific. From 1866 to 1890 Gordon was successively
Governor of Trinidad, Mauritius, Fiji and finally of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). For a period he
was High Commissioner and Consul-General for the Western Pacific. His governorship
of Fiji (1875-1880), in which he introduced measures to restrict dispossession of Islander
rights, was perhaps his most significant
contribution to British colonial practice. He
also tried to embed in Fiji a social structure
which was said to have cultural affinities with
his Scottish heritage. Following his colonial
service, he was ennobled in 1893 as Baron
Stanmore and later became chairman of
the Pacific (Island) Phosphate Company. Its
mining activities on Banaba (Ocean Island)
in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate
became increasingly controversial and were
the subject of parliamentary questions and
investigative journalism because of the
destructive impact on the environment and
allegations of undue political influence by
Lord Stanmore and his business associates.
In 1913, a year after Lord Stanmore’s
Figure 9.6. Arthur Hamilton-Gordon (Lord
Stanmore), unknown photographer, albumen
carte-de-visite, early 1860s. Ax9573.
© National Portrait Gallery, London.
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Provenance
death, the New Age newspaper described the Pacific Phosphate Company as “modern
buccaneers in the West Pacific”. Eventually, the rapaciousness of the phosphate industry led
to the environmental degradation of much of Banaba. Gordon’s ethnographic collections
amassed during his governorship, were donated to the British Museum and the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge.
Goward, Reverend William Edward (1860-1931)
Collector of overalls and upper body armour in the World Museum, Liverpool
Goward was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire and married Emmeline
Simmonds in Hackney in 1887. Goward joined the London Missionary Society and
the couple were sent to Samoa in 1888. After a successful time working in the mission
stations on Upolu and Savai’i in Samoa, in 1900 they were posted to work in one of the
outstation headquarters on Beru in the Gilbert Islands. The Gilbert Islands mission
included the Ellice Islands, Nauru, Banaba (Ocean Island) and the Phoenix Islands.
Goward set up a training school for Indigenous pastors who were subsequently
stationed on the islands of Nikunau, Onotoa, Tamana and Arorae, and carried on the
work of conversion throughout the Islands. Goward was a strict traditionalist and
used his influence and the power of the LMS to prohibit various Indigenous customs
such as dancing. With his wife, Goward collected objects from the Gilbert and Ellice
Islands, some of which were acquired by the British Museum and the World Museum,
Liverpool. Goward served in the Pacific from 1888 to 1919, when he retired from the
LMS and lived at Cronulla in New South Wales, Australia. In 1928, the couple moved
back to the UK and settled in Worthing, Sussex.
Figure 9.7. Portrait of Rev. William
Goward and his wife Emmaline
Goward c.1916, CWM/LMS/Home/
Missionary Portraits/Box 2. Photo:
Josh Murfitt, 2017. Council for World
Mission archive, SOAS Library.
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Grimble, Sir Arthur Francis (1888-1956)
Collector of a pair of forearm guards in the British Museum
A British colonial administrator, ethnographer, author and broadcaster, Grimble was born
in Hong Kong. He was the son of Frank Grimble, partner in an Admiralty contracting
company, and Blanche Ann Arthur. He was educated in England from 1898 and attended
Cambridge University (1907-1910). At Cambridge he came to know W.H.R. Rivers, whose
influential anthropological research in Melanesia encouraged Grimble to join the Colonial
Service in 1914 and to secure a posting to the Western Pacific. Arriving as an administrative
cadet on Ocean Island (Banaba), Grimble rose to become District Officer of Tarawa,
Abemama and Beru, and the first Native Lands Commissioner. He ended his posting in
the Gilbert and Ellice Islands as its Resident Commissioner (1926-1933) having studied
and mastered the Gilbertese language. Knighted in 1930, Grimble became Governor of
the Seychelles (1936-1942) and Governor of the Windward Islands (1942-1948). Upon
his retirement to Britain in 1948, Grimble wrote a memoir about his experiences in the
Gilbert and Ellice Islands called A Pattern of Islands (1952). It was a major publishing
success and was followed by a sequel Return to the Islands (1957) and a feature film based
on his experiences, Pacific Destiny (1956). Grimble also became a popular broadcaster
on BBC Radio and was regarded as a specialist in the myths and oral traditions of the
Kiribati people. As such, he published papers in the journals of the Royal Anthropological
Institute and the Polynesian Society. Grimble’s interest in ethnography led him to acquire
numerous Kiribati objects, which are now housed in museum collections. Retrospectively,
Grimble has been seen as a more controversial figure in the history of Banaba. In the 1970s,
Banaba took legal action against the British government over the environmental impact of
phosphate mining on the island and the way royalty payments had been handled. Grimble’s
role in these matters as Resident Commissioner was strongly criticised by the Banaban
Figure 9.8. Sir Arthur
Grimble, K.C.M.G. © BBC
Photo Library.
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Provenance
petitioners. With hindsight, Grimble’s record, like that of other early twentieth century
colonial administrators, can be seen as complex and even contradictory in its treatment
of Islanders. Colonial officials, in this era, often struggled to balance their concern for
Indigenous people and their customs with their role as representatives of the Crown.
Hardy, Norman Heywood (1864-1914)
Collector of body armour in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Hardy was an artist and illustrator, primarily of anthropological texts. Little is known of
his early life save that he lived in London and was fond of visiting the city’s museums.
In 1883 Hardy met the prominent ethnographer John Beddoe and provided him with
several illustrations for Beddoe’s work, Races of Mankind. In 1891 Hardy left England
for Sydney where he worked as an artist at the Sydney Mail. During his time in Australia
Hardy travelled widely and began to collect weapons and utensils. Throughout this
period he undertook voyages to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides
(Vanuatu) and travelled to China. The artwork he produced in these places was used to
illustrate a great number of texts, including The Savage South Seas published in 1907
and Women of All Nations in 1911. Hardy’s work reached a relatively wide audience and
was reproduced in texts for many years. His art depicted the everyday life of Indigenous
peoples in the Pacific and their complex encounters with European traders. He was a
member of the Anthropological Institute from 1890.
Harris, Commander Henry (1851-1893)
Collector of a cuirass in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
Henry Harris joined the Royal Navy in 1865 as a cadet. He rose through the ranks,
serving on a number of ships, becoming a Lieutenant in 1875 and a Commander in
1892. HMS Emerald, one of the vessels on which he served as Lieutenant (1878-1882),
was assigned for those years to the Australia Station, the naval command responsible
for the Western Pacific. During that time Emerald was sent to the Solomon Islands to
take punitive action against Islanders who had killed the Commander and three crew
members of HMS Sandfly. In 1881 Emerald visited the Ellice Islands, which is where
Harris may have acquired the coconut fibre armour cuirass now in the Royal Albert
Memorial Museum collection. He later served as Lieutenant on HMS Flying Fish from
1883 to 1887, a vessel that was assigned to the Australia Station in 1886 for survey
duties. Harris died of pneumonia, in 1893 at Haslar Hospital in Gosport. A wall tablet
at the Church of St Peter St Paul and St Thomas of Canterbury, Bovey Tracey, Devon is
dedicated to his memory.
Hutchin, Reverend John Joseph Knight (1857-1912)
Collector of a waist band in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Hutchin was born in Yorkshire, the son of a Congregational minister. In 1882 he married
Ellen Davies in Essex and together they embarked on a voyage to Rarotonga in the Cook
Islands. Until his death 30 years later, Hutchin worked as a missionary for the London
Missionary Society in the Cook Islands, although he had a brief stint in Orokolo in Papua
New Guinea. As well as being a missionary and teaching the gospel, Hutchin and his wife
immersed themselves in the local communities in which they lived and worked. Much
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Figure 9.9. Portrait of Rev. John Joseph
Knight Hutchin, CWM/LMS/Home/
Missionary Portraits/Box 2. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017. Council for World Mission
archive, SOAS Library.
time was spent learning local languages,
translating and editing a Rarotongan
newspaper, as well as making recordings of
local legends and songs. Ellen established a
girl’s school at Takamoa on Rarotonga and
Hutchin ran a training college for future
missionaries. He believed that the success
of any mission came from training native
pastors to teach their own community once
they returned to their Islands. The couple
had four sons and four daughters during
their time serving the LMS. Their first
child, John Davies Hutchin, born in 1886,
was the only son to survive. During his
service Hutchin amassed a large collection
of material culture, most of which is now
housed in the Pacific collection at Te Papa
Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand.
im Thurn, Sir Everard Ferdinand (1852-1932)
Collector of a porcupine fish helmet in the Pitt Rivers Museum and body armour and a
cuirass in the World Museum, Liverpool
An explorer, anthropologist, naturalist, photographer and colonial administrator, im Thurn
was born to a Swiss-German father and English mother. He was educated at Marlborough
College and Oxford, Edinburgh and Sydney universities. His first book, dedicated to his
headmaster, was a study of The Birds of Marlborough (1870). He joined the Colonial Service
and, at the age of 25, was appointed curator of the Museum of the Royal Agricultural
and Commercial Society of British Guiana (now Guyana). This appointment was made
on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Hooker, Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens,
Kew. Throughout his residence in the colony, im Thurn sent plant and flower specimens
back to Kew, a practice he continued during his long career in colonial administration.
im Thurn combined his colonial career with anthropological fieldwork, a pioneering use
of field photography and wide-ranging research into tribes and customs. He published
numerous works across the fields of ethnography, botany, geography, ornithology and
the study of Indigenous cultures. In 1882 he was appointed as a regional magistrate in
British Guiana and, from 1891 to 1899 he was a District Government Agent. Returning to
London, im Thurn spent two years in the Colonial Office before being posted to Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka), where he was Acting Governor from 1903 to 1904. For six years he served
as Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner, Western Pacific. During this period (1904-
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Provenance
Figure 9.10. Sir Everard im
Thurn by Walter Stoneman,
bromide print, 1918. x168522.
© National Portrait Gallery,
London.
1910) im Thurn travelled extensively throughout the Pacific and collected material culture,
most of which was presented to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1909, with a second donation
in 1923 and a later donation to National Museums Scotland. In 1905, he was knighted
(KCMG) and in 1918 he received the KBE in recognition of his war services. In retirement
he received many honours, including fellowship of the Royal Geographic Society (19141917) and the presidency of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1919-1920). He also had
conferred on him the LLD by Edinburgh and Sydney universities. For im Thurn, a belief in
the benefits for all of an irreversible colonializing process seems to have come to the fore
with his arrival in the Pacific. This senior colonial role gave him less freedom to follow his
anthropological activities and establish a sympathetic understanding of Indigenous people
than in British Guiana where, in his more junior colonial position, the inherent tensions
between the colonial presence and his anthropological and scientific pursuits could more
easily coexist. Tellingly, in a lecture he gave in Australia in 1914, as the president of the
Anthropological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, im
Thurn was distinctly uncomfortable with the use of terms ‘savage’ and ‘civilised’ – a possible
insight into an underlying tension he felt between his colonial outlook and anthropological
interests which followed him into retirement – complexities he shared with Lord Stanmore
and Sir Arthur Grimble.
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Iredale, Lancelot (1789-1848)
Collector of body armour, a tunic style cuirass and a waist band in the Great North
Museum: Hancock
Trained and employed as a blacksmith in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Iredale was convicted
of stealing iron bars and transported to Australia in 1816, leaving behind his wife and
three daughters. Emancipated following a conditional pardon in 1820, he established
a successful ironmongery firm in Sydney (Iredale and Co) and by 1822 had convictlabour in ‘assigned’ service with him. His wife, Sarah, who joined him with their
children in 1827, died the following year. Iredale remarried in 1829 and went on to play
an active part in Sydney community life. He was Treasurer of the Sydney Infirmary, a
member of Sydney Hospital and Sydney College committees and later a councillor in
local government. He was also part of the early Methodist leadership (along with other
Emancipists) and a financial supporter of a Wesleyan chapel. In 1844, Iredale and Co.
provided supplies to an expedition mounted by the naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt which
navigated almost 3,000 miles across Australia, from the Darling Downs in Queensland,
north to Port Essington. In the same year, Iredale was made an alderman of Sydney.
Prior to his service as alderman began, Iredale took his family to England, and these
dates correspond with the acquisition from him (in 1841) of a whole suit of Kiribati
armour. Museums Victoria hold artefacts donated by Iredale, including copper tokens
issued by his company after his death. However, three pieces of coconut fibre armour
held in Melbourne have no known connection to Iredale.
King, Reverend Joseph (1839-1923)
Possible donor of armour in the British Museum as well as Rev Whitmee’s armour in the
Pitt Rivers Museum
King, a missionary with the London Missionary Society, was born in Downend near
Bristol. He grew up in Oxfordshire and worked as an apprentice in Reading before
becoming a member of Trinity Congregational Church, Reading, in 1857. King
volunteered as a missionary in 1860, married Miriam Walkington in February 1863,
and was ordained five days later before embarking on a mission to Australia. Having
spent time in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales, and after
forming a great affection for the country, King left Australia for Apia in Samoa. From
1863 to 1865 he served as a missionary on Upolu and later on Savai’i until 1872. During
this time, King worked closely with his contemporaries in the Samoan mission, Rev.
George Turner and Rev. Samuel Whitmee. Due to his wife’s failing health, the Kings
left Samoa in late 1872, first heading for Australia and finally arriving in England in
early 1873. After spending around a year in England, likely having visited the British
Museum as well as the Ashmolean in Oxford, King and his wife sailed back to Victoria in
September 1874 where his first daughter was born the next year. He continued to teach
the Protestant missionary cause in the Pacific from his base of Victoria and from 1889
he became the intermediary between members of various missions, LMS headquarters
and the British government. Around this time he also formed close friendships with
missionaries and colonial administrators acting in British New Guinea, especially
William MacGregor. Over the decades that followed, King continued his advocacy
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Figure 9.11. Portrait of Rev.
Joseph King and his wife Miriam
King in 1922, CWM/LMS/Home/
Missionary Portraits/Box 3. Photo:
Josh Murfitt, 2017. Council for
World Mission archive, SOAS
Library.
work for the LMS until his retirement from the mission in 1911. He was described as
having a genial disposition and – a rare ability for the time – to communicate with a
wide range of people which meant that he made friends easily. King died in Victoria in
September 1923, survived by his wife Miriam, two sons and five daughters.
Layard, Edgar Leopold (1824-1900)
Collector of a cuirass in the Manchester Museum
Born in 1824 in Berti Palace, Florence, to an English family of Huguenot ancestry,
Layard was the seventh son of Henry Layard (of the Ceylon civil service) and his wife
Marianne Austen (the daughter of a Ramsgate banker). Edgar’s eldest brother was the
statesman and archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard. The family returned to England
from Italy when Edgar was around ten years old and he continued his education at
Richmond, Wheaton Aston and then Cambridge. Layard had a childhood passion for
nature and had collections of shells and butterflies and a keen interest in taxidermy. His
father disapproved of these pursuits and his mother harboured hopes that her youngest
son would dedicate himself to the church. Layard’s father died shortly after their return
to England and his mother moved the family to her parents’ home in Ramsgate. There,
Edgar met a Mr Thompson, who was a naturalist and taxidermist and taught him to
skin and mount birds. According to Layard, this acquaintance “set fast the colour of my
life”. He met Barbara Anne Calthrop, daughter of Rev. John Calthrop, who shared his
passion for zoology and trained in art in order to assist his naturalist endeavours. The
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two were married in 1845 and together they left England for Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where
Layard had been offered a position working on the machinery at a coffee estate. There
they explored the local flora and fauna together. During their ten years in Ceylon,
Layard became a colonial administrator, first working at the customs house and then
taking the Bar and becoming a magistrate, travelling the administrative districts and
adjudicating in disputes. On one occasion, his interest in natural history was put to
good use when he used the presence of molluscs to determine the correct location of
a drain and therefore the true boundary between two properties. Layard had contact
with many other eminent naturalists of the day, including Darwin who wrote to him
in 1855 requesting assistance with acquiring specimens – particularly pigeons. While
in Ceylon, Layard began a long correspondence with Edward Blyth, the Curator of
Zoology at the Museum of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta. Blyth sent Layard a list of the
182 known bird species of Ceylon and by the time Layard left the country, his collection
had increased that number to 318. In 1854 Layard worked for the Governor in South
Africa and was made curator of the South African Museum, significantly expanding
the collections and exhibits and doing so largely at his own expense. Layard’s most
significant legacy is the book Birds of South Africa, which he published in 1887. In 1873
Layard travelled to Fiji where he was one of two authors of a report to the Colonial
Secretary, Lord Kimberley, on the condition of the islands. This report led to the
annexation of Fiji in 1874 and the appointment of Arthur Gordon to the Governorship.
From 1876, Layard was the honorary British Consul in New Caledonia. Between 1870
and 1881 he travelled and collected extensively in the Pacific. He is known to have
visited the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), Samoa, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, New Britain
and Norfolk Island. Many of the avian specimens collected during this period went to
the Natural History Museum, others are now in the National Museums and Galleries
on Merseyside. Layard died in Devon in January 1900.
Lizzy Leckie (1965 - )
Maker of new armour in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Lizzy Leckie was born in Milton, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a weaver who has
worked with Maori and Kiribati weavers learning traditional techniques. Lizzy was
project manager for Tungaru: The Kiribati Project. She not only works weaving fibre
but also weaving people, communities and their stories. Following extensive museum
research, she helped to create the contemporary suit of armour which is now in the
care of the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology.
Luard, Admiral Sir William Garnham (1820-1910)
Collector of overalls in Saffron Walden Museum
Luard was born to a prominent family of Huguenot merchants who had fled to England in
the late seventeenth century. His father, William Wright Luard, was an Essex magistrate.
Luard entered the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth aged 13. He had an extensive naval
career and saw action in the South China Sea, for which he was recognised in dispatches
and decorated for gallantry and bravery on a number of occasions. He served in the First
Anglo-China (Opium) War 1839-1842 and other British naval engagements, including
the taking of Rangoon in 1852 in the Second Anglo-Burmese War, after which he was
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Provenance
awarded the Burmese Medal and the Medal of the Legion of Honour 4th class by Emperor
Napoleon III. Following service as captain and Commander of HMS Formidable and
HMS Conqueror, Luard became superintendent of Sheerness Dockyard and the Malta
Dockyard. From 1882 to 1885, he was President of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
He was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1875, Vice-Admiral in 1879 and Admiral in 1885.
During her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Queen Victoria advanced Luard to KCB. Luard
retired to his estate in Essex where he served as a Justice of the Peace and as an active
member of the court of Quarter Sessions. He died as a result of injuries sustained in a
carriage accident. Although there is no evidence to explain how he acquired the armour,
his naval career and contacts would have provided plenty of opportunity.
MacGregor, Dr William, later Sir (1846-1919)
Possible collector of armour in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Born in October of 1846 in Aberdeenshire, William MacGregor had a 40-year career
as a colonial official, initially as a medical officer and then as a governor. He was the
eldest son of John MacGregor, a crofter, and his wife Agnes. He studied medicine at
Aberdeen and graduated MD. MacGregor joined the Colonial Service in 1872 and was
initially posted to the Seychelles as an assistant medical officer. He then travelled to
Mauritius where he came to the attention of Sir Arthur Gordon, who was then the
Governor. Gordon assisted MacGregor in his rise up the ranks, making him the Chief
Medical Officer of Fiji in 1875; this coincided with a deadly measles outbreak that
killed 50,000 Fijians. In 1884 MacGregor saved several lives when a ship carrying
indentured labourers ran aground near Suva. He received two medals as a result of his
actions. On several occasions MacGregor acted as Governor for Gordon and he was
also made acting High Commissioner and Consul-General for the Western Pacific. In
1888 MacGregor was appointed the first administrator of British New Guinea. Here
he explored along the coast and into the interior, receiving the Founder’s medal from
the Royal Geographic Society in 1896 for his mapping of the territory. MacGregor
was made Lieutenant Governor in 1895 and remained until 1898. In 1899 he was
appointed Governor of Lagos Colony, Nigeria, where he drained swamps to help
prevent the spread of malaria. In Newfoundland, where he was Governor from 19041909, he was concerned with preventing cases of tuberculosis. In 1909 he became the
Governor of Queensland, Australia. He retired from the service in 1914 and returned
to Scotland and died in 1919. MacGregor collected artefacts throughout his long career
and donated his collection to various museums. He left approximately 8,000 objects
in trust with the Queensland Museum with the stated wish that they be repatriated to
the people of New Guinea when a suitable institution could be built there. Much of his
collection now resides in the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery in
Port Moresby.
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McNaughton, Dr J.G. (1872-1953)
Collector of two cuirasses, one in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and one in National
Museums Scotland
Little information is available about Dr J.G. McNaughton, save that the hospital at
Funafuti, Tuvalu – formerly part of the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands – came under
his supervision in 1916 and that while there he became involved in the treatment of a
form of tuberculosis. After some time working at the hospital on Tarawa, he resigned
in 1919 and left the Islands. The hospital itself was located on Fongafale, the main
settlement on Funafuti, and was founded in 1913 by G.B.W. Smith-Rewse, the first
District Officer who administered the Ellice Islands from 1909 until 1915 when he
was appointed to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). National Museums Scotland holds a
number of objects from McNaughton in its collection.
Oldman, William Ockelford (1879-1949)
Donor of panel for overalls in the Horniman Museum and Gardens
Oldman was born in Lincolnshire and was the son of a Cumberland farmer. He is
best known for his collection of Polynesian artefacts and his printed catalogues of the
1890s. William Downing Webster, a contemporary collector, considered him a protégé.
Oldman was a major figure in the network of collectors, curators and dealers and was
elected a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1905. There, he came into
contact with Henry Balfour and James Edge-Partington, who was a close friend. He
retired as a dealer in 1927, but continued to purchase objects for his own collection
which he kept at home in Clapham Park, London. In 1948, his Polynesian collection
was sold to the New Zealand government and subsequently distributed to a number of
museums. After his death, his widow, Dorothy, continued to dispose of his collection
to the British Museum and, finally, at a Sotheby’s sale in 1950.
Pitt-Rivers, Augustus Henry Lane Fox (1827-1900)
Armour in the Founding Collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum
An archaeologist and army officer whose collection formed the Pitt Rivers Museum in
Oxford, Pitt-Rivers was born Augustus Henry Lane Fox in Yorkshire. He was the son
of William Lane Fox and Lady Caroline Douglas. In 1853 he married the Honourable
Alice Margaret Stanley; the couple had nine children who survived to adulthood.
Upon inheriting the estate of a great uncle in 1880 he took the name Pitt-Rivers, which
was a condition of the bequest. Pitt-Rivers served in the military for 32 years, having
been educated at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst for six months at the age
of fourteen. He saw action during the Crimean War, fighting in the Battle of Alma,
and spent much of the rest of his military career involved in weapons development
and training. He was heavily involved in the replacement of muskets with rifles. He
retired from the military in 1882 having achieved the honorary rank of LieutenantGeneral. Pitt-Rivers is considered by some to be the founder of British archaeology.
He became interested in archaeology and ethnology in the 1850s while still in the
military and he began collecting ethnographic objects from around the world. By the
time of his retirement he had a collection of tens of thousands of objects and artefacts.
The estates Pitt-Rivers inherited in 1880 contained significant archaeological materials
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Provenance
from the Saxon and Roman periods which he excavated over several years, using
methods that were rigorous by the standards of the day and included the cataloguing
of all objects found, rather than just those that were beautiful or had aesthetic value as
had previously been the case. This focus on more humdrum objects allowed a picture
of everyday life to emerge. Pitt-Rivers also had a significant impact on the style and
nature of museum displays, due to the way in which he organised his collection to
support his nineteenth century views on cultural evolution. He displayed his artefacts
in ‘typological series’ – placing objects of the same type together, for example weapons,
and arranging them in a particular order, in this case chronologically. Pitt-Rivers used
this method to highlight trends in the evolution of design and technology. In 1882
Pitt-Rivers became the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, tasked with protecting
archaeological sites. The creation of this post was the first time the state had taken a
lead on the issue of heritage. The Pitt Rivers Museum was founded in 1884 with the
gift of around 30,000 objects from Pitt-Rivers to Oxford University. Today the museum
houses over a quarter of a million objects from all over the world and amongst its
displays are several examples of Kiribati armour.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-)
Collector of a porcupine fish helmet and cuirass, part of the Royal Collection, housed at
the British Museum
Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born on the Greek island of Corfu, the
only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. He had four
older sisters. Philip is the great-great grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
In September 1922 Philip’s uncle King Constantine I was forced to abdicate by the
new military regime. Prince Andrew was imprisoned and ultimately the family was
exiled from Greece for life. The family moved to Paris where Philip was educated at an
American school; he then left for England where he lived with his maternal grandmother
while attending Cheam School. He later briefly attended a school in Germany before
moving again to Scotland. In 1939, Philip joined the Royal Navy College at Dartmouth
and graduated a year later at the top of his class. It was here that he met the then
Princess Elizabeth when she toured the college with the Royal Family. The two began
a correspondence and the couple announced their engagement in 1947, marrying on
20 November 1947 at Westminster Abbey in a ceremony that was transmitted to radios
around the globe. On the day of the wedding Philip was created Duke of Edinburgh.
The Queen and Prince Philip have four children, Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward.
Philip served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. In October 1942 he was
promoted to First Lieutenant of the HMS Wallace, making him one of the youngest
First Lieutenants in the Navy’s history at the age of 21. Philip continued to serve
actively in the Navy until 1951, reaching the rank of Commander. In 1953 on the death
of King George VI, Elizabeth was crowned Queen and Prince Philip’s role shifted to
that of Royal Consort. In 1956 Prince Philip launched the Duke of Edinburgh award
scheme for young people. In 1959, following his solo tour of India and Pakistan, Philip
travelled to Kiribati aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia. While visiting Tarawa, he was
presented with the porcupine fish helmet and coconut fibre cuirass that today reside
at the British Museum. Links between Kiribati and the Royal Family continued after
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Figure 9.12. Photograph of a group of people performing a dance and carrying HRH Prince
Philip in Bairiki on Tarawa, Kiribati in 1959 by Tony Atkinson. Gelatin silver print.
Oc,A11.11. © Trustees of the British Museum.
the Islands declared their independence in 1979, with the republic sending a gift of a
silver ice bucket to the Royal Family to mark the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana
Spencer. It is now held in the Royal Collection.
Ramsden, Robert Henry (1784-1865)
Collector of overalls and a tunic style cuirass in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Ramsden lived at Carlton Hall, the family manor in Nottinghamshire, where he became
High Sheriff in 1837 and was later made a Justice of the Peace. He married Frances
Matilda Plumptre on 29 July, 1816. They had nine children. Robert died at the age of 81.
It is not known how or why Ramsden acquired his collection of ethnographic objects,
which was purchased by the University of Oxford in 1878, although it is thought that
he was influenced by another one of our collectors Sir Arthur Gordon. Ramsden’s
collection was housed first at the University Museum [of Natural History], then at the
Ashmolean Museum between 1878 and 1886, before finally being transferred to the
Pitt Rivers Museum.
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Rutter, Arthur (1850-1909)
Donor of two cuirasses and a coconut fibre helmet in the Museum of Cambridge
Archaeology and Anthropology
Arthur Rutter was a Cambridge-based auctioneer and estate agent whose premises were
located on Sidney Street and who was also active in Bury St Edmunds. In 1903, Rutter donated
a number of items, including coconut fibre armour, to the MAA. He also donated a whip
made of rhino hide from central Africa. As there is no evidence that Rutter ever travelled to
the Pacific or Africa, it seems reasonable to conclude that these objects had come into Rutter’s
possession through the auction house. The original collectors are unknown.
Scott, Richard (1792-1833) and Ann (1802-1890?)
Donors of overalls in Whitby Museum
Ann Avitt married ‘gentleman’ Richard Scott on 8 January 1828 and they lived in Cliff
Lane, Whitby. Although his father and grandfather were mariners in the Baltic trade,
it is likely that Scott never strayed far from Whitby because of a medical condition that
prevented him from strenuous work. Richard Scott inherited all the family land and
the annual income as well as the house in Cliff Lane. He died aged 40 years old with no
other siblings, leaving £3,000. Provision was made for his wife (provided she did not
remarry), any surviving children and the children of his cousin Thomas Parkinson,
also a mariner. Scott and Parkinson were of similar age, were close friends, cousins and
neighbours and Scott was the first witness or best man at Parkinson’s wedding in 1816.
In 1829 Richard Scott donated objects from Fernando Po, an island off the west coast
of Africa (now known as Bioko). And in 1838, five years after her husband’s death, Ann
Scott donated coconut fibre armour, together with some other objects from Fernando
Po, to the Whitby Museum. The armour could have been collected by the Scotts’ longstanding friend, Parkinson, while on board a vessel anytime between 1822 and 1825,
when there were several voyages to the Pacific led by Whitby captains. Merchant ships
often visited the Islands to pick up supplies and resources for the journey ahead, as well
as trading resources for souvenirs.
Swayne, Charles Richard (1843-1921)
Collector of a suit of armour in the British Museum
Swayne was the first British Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands
(Kiribati) from 1893-1895, making him one of the few collectors we can definitely place on
the Islands. Swayne reported to Sir Arthur Gordon in his capacity as High Commissioner
for the Western Pacific and had previously worked as a Stipendiary Magistrate in Lau
(Fiji). Swayne’s approach to governing was to advise rather than instruct and he focused
on educating Islanders in order that they may play a role in governing themselves. He
became interested in researching local laws from across the Islands, in an attempt to devise
a common legal code. Swayne spent most of his two years in the Protectorate instructing
local governments on their duties and despite facing difficulties with transport and
scarce resources, he successfully shaped the founding principles of administration for the
Protectorate. During his time in the Islands, he made a collection of objects, which are
today in the British Museum. He also acquired items from Fiji, during his years of service
there between 1880 and 1890.
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Thompson, Wellington James (1874-1956)
Donor of a cuirass in Nottingham City Museum
Thompson was born in Wolverhampton, where his father owned a photographic
business. His father died when Wellington was only eight, leaving the family in
difficult circumstances. They subsequently moved to Nottingham where the police
helped Thompson’s mother find work and accommodation. As a result, Thompson
never forgot the charity shown to his family during this period and it was this kindness
that led to him gifting his collections to the city in the 1950s. Thompson was a talented
artist and, although he won a scholarship to the Nottingham School of Art, his mother
was unable to provide the funds, and instead he was apprenticed to a sign writer. Upon
completion of his apprenticeship, Thompson chose to go into antiques dealing, opening
a shop in Nottingham and moving premises several times, until the Great Depression
of the 1930s made the trade so difficult that he chose to relocate to London. There he
specialised in arms and armour and had shops in Drury Hill and later in Castle Gate.
Thompson returned to Nottingham around the outbreak of the Second World War and
opened a shop on Carlton Hill. Thompson was a passionate collector who established
a number of different collections, including unusual keys, ladies muff pistols and his
ethnographic collection of arms and armour. He never travelled abroad himself and
his collection was acquired through auction sales and visits to stately homes. Upon his
retirement in the 1950s, Wellington Thompson donated both his key collection and
his ethnographic collection to the Mansfield Museum and these objects, including the
coconut fibre cuirass, still form the base of the Museum’s world cultures section today.
Toms, Herbert Samuel (1874-1940)
Donor of a cuirass in Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
Lecturer, archaeologist, curator and protégé of Pitt-Rivers, Toms was born in Dorset.
After attending his village school he was asked to stay on as pupil-teacher and did so
until the end of 1892. In 1893 he was employed for three years by Pitt-Rivers on an
excavation of Bronze Age enclosures. It was during this time that Toms was exposed
to Pitt-Rivers’ ethnographic collection at Farnham which assisted him in his later role
as a curator. Toms began his 43-year museum career at Brighton Museum in 1897 and
was fascinated by Sussex archaeology and later folklore and the spiritualist movement,
both of which he lectured on extensively. Together with other local enthusiasts, Toms
founded the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club in 1906. The club (later Society)
undertook many local excavations using the meticulous record-keeping and attention
to detail that Toms had learnt during his time with Pitt Rivers. The club also published
regularly and between 1907 and 1927 many detailed reports were produced of important
Sussex archaeological sites, with Toms himself being published in several academic
journals. Although brisk and military in his demeanour, Toms was a pacifist by nature
and a medical condition prevented him from enrolment in the army. His interest in
ethnography continued and flourished over his years as curator and it is known that
he would often find new curiosities to add to his collection in the markets of Upper
Gardner Street in Brighton. Toms taught himself to proficiently curate the natural
sciences, zoological, mineralogical and geological collections, as well as archaeological
finds and ethnography. His museum legacy is a rigorous system of accessioning and an
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organised storage system, which is thought to have been developed during his tenure
with Pitt-Rivers. Toms retired from Brighton Museum in 1939 and died a year later.
Tufnell, Henry Archibald (1854-1898)
Possible collector of armour in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Tufnell was born in 1854. His father was Henry Tufnell, a Whig politician and Privy
Counsellor. The Tufnell family owned the Tufnell Park estate in Islington and made its
wealth from developing the land during the nineteenth century. Tufnell’s father died
the year he was born and little else is known of his family life save that he was raised
by an uncle. He died unmarried in 1898. The Pitt Rivers Museum has a document that
suggests that Tufnell amassed his collection while travelling the Pacific, possibly with
William MacGregor. After Tufnell’s death, his objects seem to have been combined
with some artefacts from MacGregor’s collection and later passed to Henry Anson who
bequeathed them to the Museum.
Turner, Reverend Dr George (1818-1891)
Collector of a cuirass and trousers in The Hunterian Museum
Turner was a Scottish missionary and collector who was born in Irvine, Ayrshire in
1818, the youngest of ten children. First registered at the University of Glasgow in 1837,
he undertook studies in theology at the Relief Divinity Hall, Paisley, and Cheshunt
College. In 1840 he was ordained, married Mary Ann Dunn and the couple were
immediately posted by the London Missionary Society to Tanna in the New Hebrides
(Vanuatu). Turner worked with Rev.
Henry Nisbet in an attempt to convert
the Islanders, until 1843 when they
were forced to relocate to Upolu in
Samoa due to rising hostilities. Turner
joined the Rev. John Williams and his
wife Mary who in 1830 had established
a mission in Savai’i, with Turner
acting as Secretary. He oversaw the
opening of a native ministry at Malua
in 1844 and this led to the gospel
being widely accepted throughout
Samoa. Turner wrote extensively on
Samoan culture and dialect and on a
return visit to England, in 1860, he
brought the second revision of the
Samoan Bible for publication, along
Figure 9.13. Portrait of Rev George
Turner seated c. 1860s, CWM/LMS/
Home/Missionary Portraits/Box 6.
Photo: Josh Murfitt, 2017. Council for
World Mission archive, SOAS Library.
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with his notes for the 1861 publication Nineteen years in Polynesia: missionary life,
travels, and researchers in the islands of the Pacific. That year Turner was awarded the
honorary degree of LLD by Glasgow University. In 1863 Turner returned to Malua and
continued his missionary work. After a while Mary’s health began to fail and the couple
left Samoa, arriving in England in February 1870, where she died two years later. A
year later Turner married Mary McNair, widow of missionary Rev. James McNair, and
they returned to Samoa in 1874. Due to his own failing health, Turner returned to
England for the final time in 1882 where he continued to work on his Samoan Bible
and other publications. He died in London on 19 May 1891 having served the London
Missionary Society for over 50 years. Turner was a prolific collector. Many of the
artefacts he amassed are today on display in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.
Veitch, John Gould (1838-1870)
Collector of a porcupine fish helmet in the British Museum
Veitch was born into a horticultural dynasty and was an intelligent and witty man who
was also a gifted botanist and plant hunter. In 1860 he was one of the first Victorian
plant hunters to visit Japan aged just 21 years old. After sailing to Australia in 1864 he
joined the HMS Salamander to acquire specimens along the east coast. With a pressing
sense of adventure he joined HMS Curaçoa as botanist the following year, sharing the
voyage with Julius Brenchley, who was an explorer and author of independent means
who had been travelling the world since the 1840s. Brenchley had undertaken voyages
to North America, Central and South America, north Africa, the Far East and the
Figure 9.14. Portrait of John Gould
Veitch. JG2CNH. © Paul Fearn/
Alamy Stock Photo.
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Hawaiian Islands where he had lived with Indigenous communities. It is likely to have
been Brenchley who encouraged Veitch to collect material culture as well as botanic
specimens. The HMS Curaçoa set sail in June 1865 and visited Norfolk Island and
Australia where they met George Adams, son of a Bounty mutineer from Pitcairn
Island. The voyage continued to the Islands of Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, the New
Hebrides (Vanuatu), Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia, returning to
England in February 1866. It is likely that Veitch collected the helmet at some stage
during the voyage. During the next five years Veitch fathered two sons with his wife
Jane and, due to his failing health from the years he had spent travelling, they wintered
in the Mediterranean. He died on 13 August 1870 of tuberculosis at the age of 31.
His brother Harry Veitch, horticulturist and head of the family business (1870-1890),
donated John’s collection to the British Museum in 1887.
Wallace, Joseph Ritson (1805-1895)
Possible collector and donor of a cuirass in the National Museums Scotland
Traveller, collector, editor and curator, Wallace was born in Lorton, near Cockermouth
in Cumbria. After serving as an apprentice at a sugar refiners until it went out of
business in 1826, he worked briefly as an artist and became an avid collector. On 6
February 1832 Wallace married Elizabeth Lonsdale at Distington near Whitehaven in
Cumbria and just nine days later he joined Elizabeth’s half-brother Captain Lawson on
board the Zeno, where he acted as supercargo. The voyage to the southern hemisphere
and the west coast of South America lasted 16 months, and provided Wallace with an
opportunity to add to his already
growing collection. He met other
travellers and collectors and
conducted many exchanges of novel
and unusual artefacts, especially
during a three-month period in
Chile. This collection formed the
basis of his first museum which he
opened at 10 Great George Street,
Douglas on the Isle of Man on 4
May 1835. Not content with being
curator of a museum which brought
in very little income, in 1836
Wallace co-established and became
editor of the newspaper the Manx
Liberal. However, the enterprise
closed in 1842 and three years later
Wallace was sued for libel, having
Figure 9.15. Joseph Ritson Wallace
c.1880s by George Patterson.
MNX3598359. © Manx National
Heritage (Isle of Man)/Bridgeman Images.
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acquired a reputation for outspoken articles. This setback, combined with local bad
feeling, prompted his relocation back to Cumbria with his wife, three children and
7,000 objects. Undaunted by his experience in Douglas, Wallace opened the Distington
or Cumberland Museum in the family home in 1850. He was constantly acquiring,
regularly visiting local collections in Cumbria to network and trade objects, and it is
likely that he acquired objects from the Hutton Museum in Keswick in the 1840s. It
is also likely that he acquired a large number of objects from his friend, the collector
George Bell when he died in 1849 and objects from Thomas Dawson’s Christies sale
in 1851. With the knowledge that there were many interesting sale collections to be
mined, he started working as an auctioneer in 1858. In 1870 the Crosthwaite Museum
collection was sold off by public auction and Wallace’s acquisitions took his overall
collection to 25,000 objects. Wallace suffered a stroke in August 1890 and died on 9
December 1895. His Manx antiquities were purchased by the Trustees of the Manx
Museum for £40 and these are now in the Museum of Manx Heritage, Douglas. The
rest of Wallace’s eclectic collection was sold at auction by Reginald R. Cross on 1
August 1899 and was dispersed in less than a month.
Waterfield, Richard (1874-?)
Collector of a coconut fibre helmet in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum
Waterfield was the son of Sir Henry Waterfield, who spent 44 years at the India Office
as Private Secretary to successive Secretaries of State for India. Richard was educated
at Westminster School and then at Christchurch College, Oxford. In 1897 he enrolled
in the Indian Finance Department. Between 1913 and 1920 he climbed the ranks
from Deputy Accountant General in Punjab and Bengal, to Officiating Accountant in
Bombay. In 1922 he was made Deputy Auditor General for the United Provinces (now
Uttar Pradesh). From the 1920s Waterfield lived in Exeter and then Teignmouth. He
became President of the Devonshire Society
in 1946. In September of 1945, Richard
donated 96 objects, primarily originating
from India and Burma, to the ethnographic
collection of the Royal Albert Memorial
Museum in Exeter. No evidence has been
found to account for how he acquired the
Kiribati helmet.
Kaetaeta Watson (1946 - )
Maker of new armour in the Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Kaetaeta Watson is an I-Kiribati master
weaver and artist. She was born on Eita
Village on Tabiteuea. As a girl she watched
Figure 9.16. Kaetaeta Watson demonstrating
the process of making coconut fibre string,
Cambridge, 2016. Photograph by Josh Murfitt.
136
Provenance
her mother, grandmother and other female relatives weave virtually all the things they
needed around the house. Working with Lizzy Leckie and Chris Charteris, Watson
created the contemporary suit of armour which is now in the care of the University of
Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology.
Webster, William Downing (1868-1913)
Donor of a cuirass and body armour in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Webster was born at Greenwich in 1868 to Robert Burrow, a potato dealer, and Sarah
Elizabeth Webster, both originally from the North West of England. Webster was
raised in Lancashire and educated within the family. His artistic talents surfaced early
and by the age of sixteen he was producing quality amateur watercolours of fossils
found locally. Webster went on to train as a stained-glass window designer in Lancaster
and is thought to have travelled Europe promoting his work. It is not known if any of
his designs were commissioned. In 1891, he married Agnes Harrison and the couple
went on to have two daughters. During the early 1890s Webster became a collector
of, and a dealer in, ethnographic artefacts. He was one the last dealers not to depend
on the break-up of museum collections as a significant source of his stock. He bought
and sold extensively, travelling the country attending auction sales, purchasing from
individual collectors and, in particular, members of the armed forces who had returned
home from foreign shores. It was from former soldiers that he obtained such a large
quantity of artefacts plundered during the infamous Punitive Expedition to Benin in
1897. In 1895, Webster began to issue what may well have been the first illustrated
catalogues detailing ethnographic objects for sale. Initially released every two months,
they went on to become quarterly publications. The early series contained lithographed
drawings of Webster’s own design. By 1898 he had switched to using photographs to
illustrate the catalogues. The photographs were provided by a Robert Webster, who
may have been his brother. Initially based mainly on European arms and armour,
Webster’s sales expanded to include a wide range of artefacts from the Americas, the
Pacific and Africa. Weapons featured frequently; however, there were a host of other
artefacts available for purchase. In March 1897, for instance, buyers could acquire a
Fijian whale tooth necklace, a Maori tiki or Inuit implements. For reasons unknown,
possibly financial, Webster sold his collection over five days in November 1904. At the
time it was dispersed, the collection was described as “probably the finest outside any
museum”. A copy of the sale catalogue survives in the British Museum. Webster died of
chronic alcoholism in 1913 in Pinner, Middlesex.
Wellcome, Henry Solomon, later Sir (1853-1936)
Donor of armour in the Horniman Museum and Gardens, World Museum, Liverpool and
the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
An American-British pharmaceutical entrepreneur and eccentric collector who,
through his will, established the Wellcome Trust, which became a worldwide medical
charity. Wellcome’s formidable drive encompassed not only the foundation of medical
research laboratories and global expansion, but also a fanatical collecting ambition.
Wellcome anonymously funded (and personally directed) extensive archaeological
excavations in Africa, but by 1919, had become something of a recluse. After his death
137
Fighting Fibres
in 1936 his astounded trustees were left with warehouses of artefacts to administer
that exceeded in volume the collections of the British Museum. The Wellcome
Trust maintains the Wellcome collections (including its library collection). Much of
Wellcome’s non-medical ethnography and antiquities were presented to the BM and
other museums in the 1950s.
Whitmee, Reverend Samuel (1838-1925)
Collector of a waist band, body armour and a cuirass in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Whitmee was born in Stagsden, Bedfordshire. He was ordained and married Mary
Cousins on 11 February 1863 and sailed to Samoa with the London Missionary Society
on 6 March the same year. Tragically, less than a year after arriving Mary died and in
1865 Whitmee married Martha Mills (née Turner), Rev. George Turner’s daughter,
who had been widowed the year before. In 1866, Whitmee and Rev. Henry Nisbet
were appointed to visit the LMS outstations in Tokelau and the Ellice and Gilbert
Groups (now Tuvalu and Kiribati). Due to a variety of difficulties their trip did not
happen until 1870. They sailed on the LMS missionary ship the John Williams, taking
with them Samoan teachers and their wives to each island they visited. Whitmee kept
a journal during this time, which he published as A Missionary Cruise in the South
Pacific being the report of a voyage amongst the Tokelau, Ellice and Gilbert Islands in
the missionary barque “John Williams” during 1870. Whitmee undertook a great deal
of original scientific research while in the Pacific and brought back many objects and
over 1,000 natural history specimens which he deposited at the British Museum and
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He was considered an expert in Polynesian flora
and fauna and wrote extensively on
the subject of botany, being published
in many journals of the time. He
travelled between England and Samoa
a number of times over the years that
followed and regularly visited various
LMS outstations. Whitmee resigned
from the LMS and became a pastor
in Dublin in 1879 where around one
year later Martha died, prompting
him to accept the role of pastor in
Arley Chapel, Bristol. In 1891 the LMS
requested that he return to Samoa,
where he became a close friend of
Robert Louis Stevenson to whom he
taught the Samoan language. Whitmee
Figure 9.17. Portrait of Rev. Samuel
Whitmee c.1871, CWM/LMS/Home/
Missionary Portraits/Box 6. Photo: Josh
Murfitt, 2017. Council for World Mission
archive, SOAS Library.
138
Provenance
finally retired in 1894 and died aged 87. He is admired for his pioneering work in
Samoa and the Gilbert Islands and was immortalised on a stamp in the Gilbert and
Ellice Islands in 1970.
Wilkins, Robert Francis (?-1909)
Donor of body armour to the Pitt Rivers Museum
Little is known about Robert Francis Wilkins save that he was living in Middlesex
prior to 1879 when he purchased a Devon estate known as Brookhill. In 1887 Robert’s
only daughter, Edith Wilkins married Henry Balfour, the first curator of the Pitt Rivers
Museum and another of our donors. Wilkins purchased the collection of the illustrator
and artist Norman Heywood Hardy, and presented Hardy’s coconut fibre armour
collection to the Museum in 1900.
Wood, Reverend John George (1827-1889)
Donor of a waist band to the Pitt Rivers Museum
Wood was born in London, the eldest son delivered to John Freeman Wood, a surgeon
and his wife Juliana Lisetta. Wood was sickly in childhood and so was educated at
home until 1838 when he was declared healthy enough to attend school. The family
moved to Oxford in 1830 where Wood was able to explore the outdoors and where
he developed an interest in natural history. Wood got his BA from Oxford in 1848
and his MA in 1851. He was ordained as a deacon in 1852 and became curate of the
parish of St Thomas the Martyr in Oxford. He was ordained priest in 1854. In February
1859 Wood married Jane Ellis and they had a son, Theodore. From the early 1850s,
alongside his roles within the church, Wood became a prolific author, primarily of
books on natural history but he also wrote on other diverse subjects. He published
over 70 books, some under the pseudonym George Forrest. Wood was influential in
bringing natural history to the wider public. His texts were not scientifically rigorous,
however, they sold extremely well and helped to popularise the subject. It is not known
how Wood came to acquire his coconut fibre armour, since he did not travel to the
Pacific himself. However, he did travel to lecture in America and around the UK. Of
particular interest is his book The Natural History of Man: Being an Account of the
Manners and Customs of the Uncivilised Races of Men, in which he writes about coconut
fibre armour but incorrectly describes it as being Samoan in origin.
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Fighting Fibres
Other collectors and donors of armour
In some cases, little or no information is available about how individuals came to be
associated with coconut fibre armour and its accession into museum collections. Listed
below are those people whose role in the network of collectors and donors has yet to
be established:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Henry Anson – Pitt Rivers Museum
Alexander Cruickshank – Montrose Museum
Mrs Samuel Dick – Dr Grierson’s Museum
Eckhart – The British Museum
J. Evans – The British Museum
George Alexander Kennedy – Manchester Museum
J.K.B. Lister – The British Museum
W.M. Logan – The Hunterian Museum
W.M. Newton – Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Fred Sessions – World Museum, Liverpool
Mr Shewring – Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
Mrs Sindall – The Horniman Museum and Gardens
George Wild – Manchester Museum
Captain M. Wodehouse – World Museum, Liverpool
George C. Yates – Bolton Museum
140
CHAPTER 10
Catalogue
This is a complete and comprehensive catalogue of all coconut fibre armour held in UK
museums.
In the captions we have retained the original geographical provenance, as it was
recorded in the registers and archives of the institutions involved. This decision
illustrates the complexity of colonial histories and their legacies, as well as the
convoluted practices of museum documentation. It also demonstrates the challenges
facing those seeking to chart the biographies of these artefacts.
Many of the images in this catalogue were taken by professional museum
photographers and we are grateful for their time and expertise. In some cases, it was
not possible to get professional photographs. In these instances we have included our
own photographs, often taken in storerooms or through glass when pieces were on
display. Although the quality of the image is inevitably compromised we prioritised
being able to include something over not showing anything at all. We thank the
museums involved for supporting our decision to do this.
Where no image is shown for an object, it is because its current location is unknown.
Bankfield Museum, Halifax
Coconut fibre helmet, 1930.147. Gilbert Islands. Purchased from Whitby Museum in 1930.
Current location unknown.
141
Fighting Fibres
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Courtesy of Birmingham Museums Trust.
Cuirass, 1918A17.10, 80cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Collected by the Chamberlain brothers
c.1877-1899 and donated by Captain Norman Chamberlain in 1918. Photograph by Josh
Murfitt.
142
catalogue
Bolton Museum
Copyright Bolton Library and Museum Services.
Originally made as overalls but
seen here as upper body armour,
BOLMG:1890.14b.11(a). Kingsmill
Islands. Bought from auctioneers
Capes, Dunn & Pilcher in 1890
from the collection of George C.
Yates. Photograph by Josh Murfitt.
Cuirass with shells,
BOLMG:1890.14b.11(b), 52cm (h)
torso. Kingsmill Islands. Bought
from auctioneers Capes, Dunn &
Pilcher in 1890 from the collection
of George C. Yates. Photograph by
Josh Murfitt.
143
Fighting Fibres
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
© Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.
Cuirass, WA509098, 86.5cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Acquired by Herbert Toms and loaned to the
Museum in 1927, purchased in 1939.
144
catalogue
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
Courtesy of Bristol Culture.
Cuirass, E3855, 79cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Donated by Mrs Shewring in 1870.
Overalls, E3856, 119cm (l). Gilbert Islands.
Donated by Mrs Shewring in 1870.
145
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The British Museum, London
© Trustees of the British Museum.
Cuirass, Oc.1973, 77cm (h). Kingsmill Islands.
Transferred from the Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew in 1866.
Overalls, Oc.1108, 175cm (l). Gilbert Islands.
Donated by Henry Christy 1860-1869.
146
Waist band, Oc.7378, 80.5cm (w). South Seas.
Presented by A.W. Franks in 1871, previous
collection, Inman.
catalogue
Porcupine fish helmet, Oc.7979, 41cm (h).
Kingsmill Islands. Purchased from Eckhart, a
dealer in Hamburg in 1872.
Overalls, Oc.8043, 160.5cm (l). Gilbert
Islands. Purchased from Mr King (Rev. Joseph
King) in 1873.
Upper body armour, Oc.8042, 160.5cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Purchased from Mr King (Rev.
Joseph King) in 1873.
Tunic, Oc.8044, 53cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Purchased from Mr King (Rev. Joseph King)
in 1873.
147
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Coconut fibre helmet with tropic bird feathers,
Oc.8045, 54cm (h approx). Gilbert Islands.
Purchased from Mr King (Rev. Joseph King)
in 1873.
Pair of gauntlets edged with shark teeth,
Oc,+.5788.a-b, 15.5cm (l). Kingsmill Islands.
Found unnumbered in the Elgin Gallery at the
Museum in 1892. Acquisition details unknown.
Gauntlet, Oc.8046, 18cm (w). Kingsmill
Islands. Purchased from Mr King (Rev. Joseph
King) in 1873.
Gauntlet, Oc.8047, 19cm (w). Gilbert Islands.
Purchased from Mr King (Rev. Joseph King)
in 1873.
148
Cuirass, Oc1848,1118.1, 76cm (h). South Seas.
Purchased from J. Evans, High Holborn in 1848.
catalogue
Porcupine fish helmet, Oc1887,0201.54,
37.5cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Collected by John
Gould Veitch and donated by Harry Veitch in
1887.
Porcupine fish helmet, Oc1894,.219, 67cm (cir). Arorae, Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Captain
Davis in 1892.
Porcupine ray skin waist band, Oc1895,-.1,
76.5cm (w). Kingsmill Islands. Previous owner
Miss Eva Cutter and donated by A.W. Franks
in 1895.
Cuirass, Oc1894,-.218, 77cm (h). Arorae,
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Captain Davis in
1892.
Shoulder armour, Oc1904,-.283, 48.5cm (l).
Kingsmill Islands. Purchased from Turvey
Abbey in 1904, possibly from the collection of
Thomas Dawson before 1851.
149
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Porcupine fish helmet, Oc1904,0621.28, 33cm
(h). Gilbert Islands. Collected by Captain
Davis in 1892.
Waist band, Oc1910,-.308, 78cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Purchased from the London
Missionary Society in 1910.
Cuirass with ray skin frontage,
Oc1904,0621.29, 70cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Collected by Captain Davis in 1892.
Cuirass, Oc1914,Loan01.22.a, 80cm (h). Navigator
Islands (Samoa). On loan from the Tower
Armouries since 1914. Collected before 1859.
150
catalogue
Tunic, Oc1914,Loan01.22.b, 55cm (h approx).
Navigator Islands (Samoa). On loan from the
Tower Armouries since 1914. Collected before 1859.
Forearm guard edged with shark teeth,
Oc1921,0221.81 and Oc1921,0221.82, 36cm
(l). Gilbert Islands Collected by Arthur Francis
Grimble before 1921.
Cuirass, Oc1922,1009.1, 96cm (h), coconut
fibre helmet, Oc1922,1009.2, 24cm (h) and
waist band, Oc1922,1009.3, 103cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Charles Swayne
1893-1895.
Overalls, Oc1914,Loan01.22.c, 159cm (l).
Navigator Islands (Samoa). On loan from the
Tower Armouries since 1914. Collected before 1859.
Upper body armour, Oc1922,1009.4, 161.5cm
(w). Gilbert Islands. Collected by Charles
Swayne 1893-1895.
151
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Upper body armour, Oc1972,Q.100.a, 159cm
(w). Gilbert Islands. Acquisition details
unknown.
Overalls, Oc1922,1009.5, 133cm (l). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Charles Swayne
1893-1895.
Waist band, Oc1972,Q.100.b, 83cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Acquisition details unknown.
Gauntlet, Oc1972,Q.100.c, 10.5cm (w). Gilbert
Islands. Acquisition details unknown.
Coconut fibre helmet, Oc1938,1001.66, 23.5cm
(h). Gilbert Islands, collected by J.K.B. Lister
in 1891.
Waist band, Oc1944,02.926, 71cm (w).
Banaba. Donated by Irene Beasley in 1944 from
the Harry Beasley Collection. Before 1924 in
the E. Heymann collection.
152
Gauntlet, Oc1972,Q.100.d, 11cm (w). Gilbert
Islands. Acquisition details unknown.
catalogue
Overalls, Oc1972,Q.104. Gilbert Islands.
Acquisition details unknown. Current location
unknown.
Porcupine fish helmet, Oc1975,Loan01.84,
37cm (h). Beru, Gilbert Islands. Presented to
HRH Prince Philip in 1959, Royal Collection
Trust (no. 74039). © Royal Collection Trust /
© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.
Cuirass, Oc1975,Loan01.98, 82cm (h). Beru,
Gilbert Islands. Presented to HRH Prince
Philip in 1959, Royal Collection Trust (no.
74052). © Royal Collection Trust / © Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.
Hood made of knotted coconut fibre,
Oc1980,Q.954, 41cm (h). Kingsmill Islands.
Acquisition details unknown but in the
Museum before 1900.
Hood made of knotted coconut
fibre, Oc1980,Q.955, 57cm (h).
Kingsmill Islands. Acquisition
details unknown but in the
Museum before 1900.
153
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Overalls, Oc1980,Q.957, 140cm (l). Kiribati.
Acquisition details unknown.
Coconut fibre helmet, 2017,Q.38 19cm (h).
Kiribati. Found in the duplicate collection
in 2017 but illustrated in James Edge
Partington’s ‘An album of the weapons,
tools, ornaments, articles of dress of
the natives of the Pacific Islands’ 1890.
Acquisition details unknown.
Upper body armour, 2017,Q.39, 151cm (w).
Gilbert Islands, collected by J.K.B. Lister in
1891.
Cuirass, 2014,Q.9, 96cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Found in the duplicate collection in 2014.
Label attached reads: ‘sent from Australia by
Mr J. (John) Douglas’.
154
catalogue
Overalls, 2017,Q.40, 110cm (l). Kiribati.
Collected by Dr Joseph Barnard Davis c.1860s.
Coconut fibre helmet with cowrie shell, sitting
inside a porcupine fish helmet, not yet registered.
Kiribati. Acquisition details unknown.
155
Fighting Fibres
Dr Grierson’s Museum, Thornhill
Courtesy of Dumfries Museum.
Cuirass. Duke of York Islands (Tokelau). On display in Dr Grierson’s Museum, Thornhill, near
Dumfries. The collection was dispersed in the 1960s. Photograph taken in 1965 by James Williams.
156
catalogue
Great North Museum, Hancock
© Great North Museum.
Overalls, NEWHM C730, 180cm (l).
Tongatoboo (Tongatapu, Tonga). Collected by
Lancelot Iredale and donated in 1841.
Coconut fibre tunic, NEWHM C732, 62cm
(h). Tongatoboo (Tongatapu, Tonga). Collected
by Lancelot Iredale and donated in 1841.
Photograph by Andrew Agate, 2017.
Pair of sleeves, NEWHM C731, 62cm (l sleeve).
Tongatoboo (Tongatapu, Tonga). Collected by
Lancelot Iredale and donated in 1841.
157
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Waist band NEWHM C733, 83cm (w). Tongatoboo (Tongatapu, Tonga).
Collected by Lancelot Iredale and donated in 1841.
Upper body armour, NEWHM C574, 158cm
(w). Fiji. Collected by Juliana Boyd in 1891.
Photograph by Andrew Agate, 2017.
Overalls, NEWHM C574, 163.4cm (l). Fiji.
Collected by Juliana Boyd in 1891. Photograph by
Andrew Agate, 2017.
158
catalogue
Horniman Museum and Gardens, South London
© Horniman Museum and Gardens.
Cuirass, 9.30, 60cm (h approx).
Gilbert Islands. Purchased from
Mrs Sindall in 1909.
Panel from overalls, 9.218, 39cm
(w).Gilbert Islands. Purchased by
William Oldman in 1909.
Cuirass, 21.1.59/15, 81cm (h).
Gilbert Islands. Transferred
from Leicester Museum in 1959.
159
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Waist band, 30.40, 32.5cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Captain Davis in 1892.
Porcupine fish helmet with hair plume
30.12.50/8, 36cm (h). Gilbert Islands. From the
Wellcome Collection in 1950.
Cuirass, 1969.286i, 95cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Collected by Rev. George Herbert Eastman
O.B.E. c.1920 and donated by the Congregational
Council for World Mission in 1969.
Upper body armour, 1969.286ii, 136cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Rev. George
Herbert Eastman O.B.E. c.1920 and donated
by the Congregational Council for World
Mission in 1969.
160
catalogue
Overalls, 1969.286iii, 142cm (l). Gilbert Islands.
Collected by Rev. George Herbert Eastman
O.B.E. c.1920 and donated by the Congregational
Council for World Mission in 1969.
Upper body armour, HM/05 81ii, 147cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Acquisition details unknown.
Overalls, HM/05 81i, 139cm (l). Gilbert
Islands. Acquisition details unknown.
Te Tia Kawakin (the guardian/protector)
Kiribati Eco-Warrior helmet made by Chris
Charteris in 2017 of recycled motorcycle
helmet, turret shells (Maoricolpus roseus),
liquid nails and reed lining. P972. Photo by
Lizzy Leckie, 2017. © Chris Charteris.
161
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The Hunterian, Glasgow
© The Hunterian, University of Glasgow.
Cuirass, GLAHM:E.462. Collected and donated by Rev. George Turner c.18401860s, and trousers, GLAHM:E.454, Gilbert Islands. Likely collected by Rev.
George Turner c.1840-1860s and donated by W.M. Logan in 1869.
162
catalogue
Ipswich Museum and Art Gallery
© Colchester and Ipswich Museums.
Cuirass, no number, 77cm (h). Kiribati. Acquisition details unknown.
163
Fighting Fibres
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Reproduced courtesy of Glasgow Museums.
Porcupine fish helmet, A.1951.82.r, 30cm
approx (h). Gilbert Islands. From the Wellcome
Collection in 1951.
Right: Cuirass, A.1966.12.a, 82cm (h),
overalls, A.1966.12.b, 127cm (l approx) and
upper body armour, A.1966.12.c. Micronesia.
Transferred from the Tower Armouries in
1966. Purchased from William Downing
Webster before 1895.
164
catalogue
Manchester Museum
Courtesy of Manchester Museum © The University of Manchester.
Upper body armour, 0.6224, 141cm (w).
Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Donated by George
Wild in 1941-1942.
Cuirass, 0.666, 89.5cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Collected by Edgar Leopald Layard and
donated by John W. Layard in 1900.
Porcupine ray skin waist band, 0.6223, Gilbert
and Ellice Islands. Donated by George Wild in
1941-1942.
Overalls, 0.6225, 119.9cm (l). Gilbert and
Ellice Islands. Donated by George Wild in
1941-1942.
165
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Porcupine fish helmet with
pandanus leaf lining, 0.8102,
42cm (h). Gilbert Islands. From
the Wellcome Collection in 1951.
Upper body armour, 0.8633 and overalls,
0.8634. Gilbert Islands. From the Wellcome
Collection in 1953.
Cuirass, 0.9322/12, 97cm (h). Kiribati.
Transferred from Salford Museum in 1969.
166
catalogue
Porcupine fish skin helmet, 0.9322/338,
14cm (h). Kiribati. Transferred from Salford
Museum in 1969.
Overalls, T.325, 166cm (l). Kiribati.
Acquisition details unknown.
Cuirass, K.1. 95cm (h). Kingsmill or Gilbert
Islands. In the collection of George Alexander
Kennedy and Henry Christy before 1890.
Panel from overalls, T.326, 65.5cm (w).
Kiribati. Acquisition details unknown.
167
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Montrose Museum, Angus, Scotland
Courtesy of ANGUSalive Museums.
Cuirass, M1980.4987, 71cm (h). South Sea Islands. Presented by Alexander
Cruickshank in 1842.
168
catalogue
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge
© Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Photographs
by Josh Murfitt.
Cuirass, E 1902.425.1, 62cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Donated by Arthur Rutter in 1903.
Trousers, E 1902.361.1, 104cm (l). Kingsmill
Islands. Donated by W.M. Newton in 1903.
Pair of sleeves, E 1902.361.2,
147cm (w). Kingsmill Islands.
Donated by W.M. Newton in
1903.
Protective panel from overalls, E
1902.425.2, 62.5cm (l). Kiribati.
Acquisition details unknown.
Protective panels for overalls x4, E 1902.362. Kingsmill Islands. Donated by W.M. Newton in 1903.
Current location unknown.
169
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Waist band E 1903.27, 24.3cm (w). Gilbert Islands.
Purchased from Rev. John Joseph Knight Hutchin
in 1903.
Cuirass, E 1902.426, 102cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Donated by Arthur Rutter in 1903.
Cuirass, 1918.1.1, 185cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Deposited by Sir Arthur Gordon in
1912.
Coconut fibre helmet, E 1902.427 75cm (cir).
Kingsmill Islands. Donated by Arthur Rutter
in 1903.
170
catalogue
Strip of knotted fibre, likely from overalls,
1918.1.4, 60cm (l). Kingsmill Islands. Deposited
by Sir Arthur Gordon in 1912.
Overalls, 1918.1.2, 165cm (l). Kingsmill Islands.
Deposited by Sir Arthur Gordon in 1912.
Upper body armour, 1918.1.3, 146cm (w).
Kingsmill Islands. Deposited by Sir Arthur
Gordon in 1912.
Cuirass, 2011.11.1, 94cm (l). Ellice Islands
(Tuvalu). Acquisition details unknown.
171
Fighting Fibres
Overalls, 2011.11.2, 194cm (l). Kingsmill
Islands. Acquisition details unknown.
Cuirass, 2011.93.1, 71cm (h). Taputeuea
(Tabiteuea), Gilbert Islands. Donated by Evert
Jan Brill before 1871.
172
Upper body armour and overalls, 2011.93.2,
46cm (w) and 180cm (l). Thought to be
associated with cuirass 2011.93.1. Taputeuea
(Tabiteuea), Gilbert Islands. Donated by Evert
Jan Brill before 1871.
Porcupine fish helmet, 2011,93.3, 24cm (h).
Taputeuea (Tabiteuea), Gilbert Islands. Donated
by Evert Jan Brill before 1871.
catalogue
Gauntlet edged with shark teeth, 2017.13,
19cm (l). Kiribati. Acquisition details
unknown, thought to be made in 1990s.
Protective panel from overalls, Z 7030, 56.9cm
(w). Gilbert Islands. Thought to be part of E
1902.362.1-4 not located panels donated by
W.M. Newton in 1903.
Sample, Z 7031, 34.3cm (w). Gilbert Islands.
Thought to be part of E 1902.362.1-4 not located
panels donated by W.M. Newton in 1903.
Protective panels from overalls, Z 7032,
62.6cm (w). Gilbert Islands. Thought to be part
of E 1902.362.1-4 not located panels donated
by W.M. Newton in 1903.
173
Fighting Fibres
Cuirass, Z 7034.1, 102cm (h), upper body
armour and overalls, Z 7034.2-3, 156cm (w),
165cm (l). Gilbert Islands. Deposited by Sir
Arthur Gordon in 1912. Porcupine fish helmet,
2011.93.3, see p.172.
Suit of armour, ‘Kautan Rabakau (to
awaken)’, made of manila rope, nylon netting
string (dyed brown). Cuirass 2017.14.1, 86cm
(h), overalls 2017.14.2, 59cm (l), upper body
armour 2017.14.3, 135cm (w) and porcupine
fish helmet 2017.15, 27cm (h). All made by
Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and Kaetaeta
Watson 2016-2017.
174
catalogue
National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh
© National Museums Scotland.
Cuirass, A.1887.619, 78cm (h). Gilbert or
Kingsmill Islands. Gift of Lord Elphinstone in
1887. Reproduced by kind permission of National
Museums Scotland.
Upper body armour, A.1890.434(a-b), 155cm
(l), Kingsmill Islands. Bought from Fenton &
Sons, London in 1890. Cuirass, A.1899.251,
108cm (h), Solomon Islands. Bought from
Distington Museum in 1899. From the
collection of Joseph Ritson Wallace.
Cuirass, A.1916.4, 69cm (h). Ellice Islands (Tuvalu).
Collected by Dr J.G. McNaughton c.1910s.
175
Fighting Fibres
Nottingham City Museum
Courtesy of Nottingham City Museums and Galleries.
Cuirass, NCM 1987-1490, 100cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Donated by Wellington
Thompson in 1952.
176
catalogue
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
Upper body armour, 1884.31.34. Kingsmill
Islands. Part of the Augustus Henry Lane Fox
Pitt-Rivers founding collection 1884. Current
location unknown.
Upper body armour, 1884.31.35.1, 163cm (w).
Kingsmill Islands. Probably collected by Rev.
Samuel Whitmee c.1870.
Waist band, 1884.31.3, 23cm (w). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by Rev. Samuel Whitmee
c.1870.
Porcupine ray skin waist band, 1884.31.4,
32cm (h). Kingsmill Islands. From the 1878
Devitt and Hett sale and part of the Augustus
Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers founding
collection.
Overalls, 1884.31.35.2, 144.4cm (l). Kingsmill
Islands. Probably collected by Rev. Samuel
Whitmee c.1870.
177
Fighting Fibres
Pair of sleeves, 2017.212.1-2 (1884.31.37.2),
83.5cm (w). Kingsmill Islands. Collected before
1862, part of the Augustus Henry Lane Fox
Pitt-Rivers founding collection.
Coconut fibre cuirass decorated with shells,
1884.31.36, 70cm (h). Gilbert Islands.
Collected by Rev. Samuel Whitmee c.1870.
Photograph by Josh Murfitt 2017.
Cuirass, 1884.31.37.1, 82.5cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Collected before 1862, part of the
Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers
founding collection.
178
Overalls, 2017.213.1 (1884.31.37.3), 147cm
(l). Kingsmill Islands. Collected before
1862, part of the Augustus Henry Lane Fox
Pitt-Rivers founding collection.
catalogue
Porcupine fish helmet, 1884.32.31, 33cm (h).
Kingsmill Islands. From the 1878 Devitt and
Hett sale, part of the Augustus Henry Lane Fox
Pitt-Rivers founding collection.
Overalls, 1884.48.11.1, 142cm (l). Kingsmill
Islands. Part of the Augustus Henry Lane Fox
Pitt-Rivers founding collection.
Waist band, 1884.48.2, 24.5cm (w). Samoa. In
the collection of Rev. John George Wood before
1878. Part of the Augustus Henry Lane Fox
Pitt-Rivers founding collection.
179
Fighting Fibres
Upper body armour, 1884.48.11.2, 157cm (l).
Kingsmill Islands. Part of the Augustus Henry
Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers founding collection.
Tunic, 1886.1.1386, 58cm (l). Kingsmill Islands.
Collected by Robert Henry Ramsden before 1878
and transferred from the Ashmolean Museum in
1886.
Overalls, 1886.1.1385, 155cm (l). Collected
by Robert Henry Ramsden before 1878 and
transferred from the Ashmolean Museum in
1886.
Porcupine fish helmet, 1899.62.466, 45cm
(h). Gilbert Islands. Collected by either Henry
Archibald Tufnell or William MacGregor in the
late 19th century and donated by Henry Anson
in 1899.
180
catalogue
Coconut fibre helmet, 1899.62.467, 16cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by either Henry
Archibald Tufnell or William MacGregor in the
late 19th century and donated by Henry Anson
in 1899.
Cuirass, 1899.62.469, 101cm (h). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by either Henry Archibald
Tufnell or William MacGregor in the late 19th
century and donated by Henry Anson in 1899.
Upper body armour, 1899.62.470, 150cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by either Henry Archibald
Tufnell or William MacGregor in the late 19th
century and donated by Henry Anson in 1899.
Cuirass, 1899.62.468, 102m (h). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by either Henry Archibald
Tufnell or William MacGregor in the late 19th
century and donated by Henry Anson in 1899.
181
Fighting Fibres
Upper body armour, 1899.62.471, 117cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by either Henry Archibald
Tufnell or William MacGregor in the late 19th
century and donated by Henry Anson in 1899.
Upper body armour, 1899.62.472, 147cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by either Henry
Archibald Tufnell or William MacGregor in the
late 19th century and donated by Henry Anson
in 1899.
Overalls, 1899.62.474, 148cm (l). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by either Henry Archibald
Tufnell or William MacGregor in the late 19th
century and donated by Henry Anson in 1899.
Overalls, 1899.62.473, 207cm (l). Gilbert
Islands. Collected by either Henry Archibald
Tufnell or William MacGregor in the late 19th
century and donated by Henry Anson in 1899.
Overalls, 1900.55.650.1, 145cm (l). Kingsmill
Islands. Collected by Norman Heywood Hardy
in the 1890s and donated by Robert Francis
Wilkins in 1900.
182
catalogue
Upper body armour, 1900.55.650.2, 162cm
(w). Kingsmill Islands. Collected by Norman
Heywood Hardy in the 1890s and donated by
Robert Francis Wilkins in 1900.
Porcupine fish helmet, 1909.34.14, 45cm (h).
Gilbert Islands. Collected and donated by Sir
Everard Ferdinand im Thurn before 1909.
Coconut fibre helmet, 1941.2.74.1, 24.7 cm
(d). Kingsmill Islands. Harry Beasley acquired
this helmet in 1930 from the Rijksmuseum,
Leiden. Before that it was in the collection of
the Horniman Museum.
Porcupine fish skin helmet, 1918.37.21.1-2,
25cm (l). Gilbert Islands. Presented by Henry
Balfour in 1918.
Cuirass, 1941.2.74.2, 47cm (h torso). Kingsmill
Islands. From the Harry Beasley collection,
previously in the Horniman Museum until
1929.
183
Fighting Fibres
Upper body armour, 1941.2.74.3, 70cm (w
sleeve). Kingsmill Islands. From the Harry
Beasley collection, previously in the Horniman
Museum until 1929.
184
Overalls, 1941.2.74.4, 105cm (l visible part).
Kingsmill Islands. From the Harry Beasley
collection, previously in the Horniman Museum
until 1929.
catalogue
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Courtesy of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter City Council.
Coconut fibre helmet with human hair,
9/1945/37, 28.4cm (h). Kiribati. Collected and
donated by Richard Waterfield in 1945.
Cuirass, 164/1907, 88.5cm (h). Kingsmill
Islands. Collected by Henry Harris, late 19th
century. Photograph by Peter Stephens.
Cuirass, 48/1943/1, 63.5cm (h). Tapitowaya
(Tabiteuea), Gilbert Islands. Collected by Dr
J.G. McNaughton c.1910s.
Cuirass, 367/2005, 76cm (h). Kiribati.
Acquisition details unknown.
185
Fighting Fibres
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
Reproduced with the kind permission of the Royal Institution of Cornwall.
Coconut fibre helmet with top knot,
TRURI:1500.450.1, 17cm (h). Kiribati.
Acquisition details unknown. Photograph by
Mike Searle.
Overalls, TRURI: 1500.450, 138cm approx (l).
Kiribati. Acquisition details unknown.
186
catalogue
Saffron Walden Museum
© Saffron Walden Museum.
Overalls, Ln; 378.12.a, 128cm (l) and pair of
sleeves, Ln; 378.12.b, 64.5cm (l each sleeve).
Gilbert Islands. Transferred from Colchester
Museum in 1981. Photograph by Josh Murfitt.
Overalls, Ln; 2107.1, 128cm (l). Marquesas
Islands. Collected by William Garnham
Luard and donated in 1837. Transferred from
Chelmsford Museum in 1963, formerly in the
Chelmsford Philosophical Society collections.
Photograph by Josh Murfitt.
187
Fighting Fibres
Whitby Museum
Courtesy of Whitby Museum.
Overalls, WHITM:ETH419, 133cm (l). New Zealand. Donated by Mrs Scott in 1838.
Photograph by Josh Murfitt.
188
catalogue
World Museum, Liverpool
© National Museums Liverpool, World Museum.
Cuirass, 51.68.514 DP Temp 1785, 85.5cm (h).
Nanouti Island (Nonouti Island), Kingsmill
Islands. From the Wellcome Collection in 1951.
Overalls, 49.58.51, 168cm (l). Gilbert Islands.
Mr Fred Sessions donated it to Gloucester City
Museum who transferred it to Liverpool Museum
in 1949.
Cuirass, 51.68.513 DP Temp 1788b, Nanouti
Island (Nonouti Island), Kingsmill Islands.
From the Wellcome Collection in 1951.
Overalls, 51.68.515 DP Temp 1778, 199cm (l).
Nanouti Island (Nonouti Island), Kingsmill
Islands. From the Wellcome Collection in 1951.
189
Fighting Fibres
Overalls, 51.68.516 DP Temp 1782, 158.5cm
(l). Nanouti Island (Nonouti Island), Kingsmill
Islands. From the Wellcome Collection in 1951.
Cuirass, 54.45 DP Temp 1780, 85cm (h
approx). Gilbert Islands. Acquired in 1954
from the Wellcome Collection, purchased from
a Stevens sale in 1899.
Upper body armour, 51.68.517 DP Temp
1776, 133cm (w). Nanouti Island (Nonouti
Island), Kingsmill Islands. From the Wellcome
Collection in 1951, purchased from a Stevens
sale in 1899.
Cuirass, 54.111.6, 73cm (h body). Gilbert
Islands. From the Harry Beasley Collection,
collected before 1935.
190
catalogue
Upper body armour, 56.24.454 DP Temp 1791,
150cm (w). Nanouti Island (Nonouti Island),
Kingsmill Islands. Collected by Sir Everard
Ferdinand im Thurn before 1920 and purchased
from Norwich Castle Museum in 1956.
Overalls, 54.131.49, 207cm (l). Gilbert Islands.
Collected by Rev. and Mrs William Goward,
late 19th century.
Upper body armour, 54.131.50a, 144.5cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Rev. and Mrs
William Goward, late 19th century.
Upper body armour, 54.131.50b, 140cm (w).
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Rev. and Mrs
William Goward, late 19th century.
Cuirass, 56.24.454, 102cm (h approx). Nanouti
Island (Nonouti Island), Kingsmill Islands.
Collected by Sir Everard Ferdinand im Thurn
before 1920 and purchased from Norwich
Castle Museum in 1956.
191
Fighting Fibres
Cuirass, 56.25.686 DP Temp 1793, 97cm (h).
Gilbert Islands. Possibly collected by Captain M.
Wodehouse and purchased from Norwich Castle
Museum 1956.
Overalls, 56.24.454a, 182cm (l). Nanouti
Island (Nonouti Island), Kingsmill Islands.
Collected by Sir Everard Ferdinand im Thurn
before 1920 and purchased from Norwich
Castle Museum in 1956.
Gauntlet edged with shark teeth, 57.66.20.
Gilbert Islands. Collected by Rev. George Herbert
Eastman O.B.E. between 1918 and 1947.
192
catalogue
Overalls, 57.66.24, upper body armour, 57.66.25, cuirass, 57.66.26, 82cm (h) and porcupine fish
helmet, 57.66.27, 46cm (h). Gilbert Islands. Collected by Rev. George Herbert Eastman O.B.E.
between 1918 and 1947.
193
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200
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research that forms the basis of this volume is the result of a collaborative project
between the British Museum and the European Research Council project Pacific
Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums (2013-2018). We acknowledge the
support of the ERC, under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement n° [324146]11, and the British Museum’s
Research and Scholarly Publications Funds.
We are indebted to all of the museum staff who assisted with our collection visits;
the survey would not have been possible without your help. Special mention to Joanna
Fernandes, Jill Hasell, Georgia Mallin, Lizzie Northcott and Emma Webb at the British
Museum; Andrew Agate and Andrew Parkin at the Great North Museum; Sarah Byrne,
Julia Gresson and Dani Tagen at the Horniman Museum; Oliver Crimmen and Julian
Hume at the Natural History Museum; Faye Belsey and Nicholas Crowe at the Pitt
Rivers Museum; Tony Eccles and Sarah Klopf at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum;
Sue Boyce and Mike Yates at Whitby Museum; and to Andrew Legg, Len Pole and
Tim Teuten for further assistance. Further thanks is due to the many institutions who
provided photographs of the armour in their collections and allowed us to reproduce
them here without charge. We also thank Josh Murfitt in Cambridge and Mike Row at
the British Museum, who undertook much of the photography work.
At the British Museum we would like to thank JD Hill for his support of this
project, as well as Lissant Bolton, Ben Burt, Kayte McSweeney and Gaye Sculthorpe. In
Cambridge, we thank Lucie Carreau, Erna Lilje, Rachel Hand, Remke van der Velden,
Kirstie Williams and, in particular, Nicholas Thomas. We thank the Kiribati Tungaru
Association in the UK for their friendship and support, in particular: Victoria Burns,
Krista Dixon and Chloe Karea.
We are hugely indebted to Colin Adams, Kate Adams and Geoff Rubenstein, who
worked alongside us and gave their time and energy without hope of financial reward!
We thank John McLeod for coming up with the title of this book.
Our humble thanks also go to Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and Kaetaeta Watson
for their in-depth knowledge, experience and generosity and to the Vivmar Foundation
for their support on this project. During the editing process we have been greatly
assisted by our copyeditor Abi Saffrey.
Finally Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and Kaetaeta Watson would like to thank
Grace Hutton, Kolokesa U.Mahina-Tuai, Sean Mallon, Nina Tonga, Moira White and
Fuli Pereira for collections access, John Watson and Mwemwetaake Ataniberu and the
whole of New Zealand’s I-Kiribati community for their knowledge and support.
201
fighting fibres
This book brings together artists, curators,
researchers and conservators to consider the
significance of coconut fibre armour from the
islands of Kiribati. Taking as its focus the armour
found in museum collections, it investigates
the historical context that led to these unique
artefacts leaving the Pacific and entering the orbit
of British collectors and institutions, as well the
legacies of those practices in the present.
As well as exploring the historical milieux
surrounding its collection, the book includes
essays from expert conservators that discuss the
challenges of caring for coconut fibre armour.
Other contributions include case studies focusing
on the construction and variety of the armour
and helmets, and the findings of a comprehensive
survey which has tracked down and documented
every piece of Kiribati armour held in UK
museum collections. Finally, the book considers
the significance of coconut fibre armour in the
present, with particular reference to the work of
a group of I-Kiribati artists whose creativity and
innovative research has led to the production of
a contemporary suit of armour inspired by the
armour of the past.
Sidestone Press
ISBN: 978-90-8890-565-0
PACIFIC PRESENCES 2
9 789088 905650
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