Publication (Book)
C. A. Bayly (ed.) (1990) The Raj: India and the British 1600-1947. National Portrait Gallery Publications; London.
Event Date 1990
Author: MAA Admin

Description (CMS Description)
Two fire sticks (drill actions) of the Blub
Event Date 20/5/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Context (CMS Context)
Catalogue card reads: '2 fire sticks (drill action) / of the Bhils. Collected by Capn Lovett the donor's / brother. / Edward Lovett Esq.'
Event Date 20/5/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Context (CMS Context)
Exhibited: Displayed in " The Raj" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, from October 1990 to March 1991; Collected by: Lovett.Captain
Event Date 20/5/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Description (CMS Description)
One of two fire sticks, A.2 being the longer of the pair. One end pointed and the other smooth and slightly blackened (?from use).
Event Date 20/5/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Context (CMS Context)
E 1894.30 A-B split out into 4 records, E 1894.30 A.1-2 and E 1894.30 B.1-2, to reflect the two sets of fire sticks and their respective parts.
Event Date 20/5/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Context (CMS Context)
Published: C. A. Bayly (ed.) 1990 The Raj: India and the British 1600-1947 National Portrait Gallery Publications. p. 297
[Section III, Photography in Nineteenth-Century India (by John Falconer), Anthropology and the Colonial Image]

‘382 Rajputana (Bhil) twin fire sticks, drill action
Four pieces of carved wood, 45 (18 3/4), 25 (9 4/5)
Cambridge University Museum or Archaeology and Anthropology (1894.30a/b [...])
These Rajasthani tribal fire-making sticks were collected by a Captain Lovett. C.P.
Provenance: Donated by Captain Lovett’s brother, Edward Lovett, to present owner, 1894.’
Event Date 20/5/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Description (Display)
'Another India: Explorations and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia' 07/03/2017 - 22/04/2018 MAA exhibition label text reads:

Bhil Identities

The Bhils of western and central India are the largest of the country’s Adivasi peoples. They have been valorised as noble and brave soldiers, and fought alongside Maharajas and the British. But they are also seen as ‘primitive’,
and thus marginalised. ‘Bhil’ identity is complex and contested. It covers smaller groups who proclaim their own distinctiveness and some who resist the label ‘Adivasi’ itself.

1. Fire sticks

These were the first artefacts from an Adivasi community donated to the Museum, in 1894. Used to make fire by friction, the stick was rotated inside the hole in the block
of wood. The heat generated set light to a bundle of dry grass held to the spot. Lovett, a British soldier in Rajasthan, collected at least four of these. Two came to MAA and two to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. a year later.

Bhil. Rajasthan
Collected by Alfred Crowdy Lovett
Donated by Edward Lovett
E 1894.30 A
Event Date 22/3/2017
Author: remke Velden

Exhibition (Li Ka Shing Gallery)
EXH.2017.2 | Another India: Explorations and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia
Event Date 8/3/2017
Author: Remke Velden