IDNO

P.980.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “‘Ai geres’, Mer. zogo.” [typed text]
“Agricultural charm” [manuscript in pencil].

Small stone figure with clearly distinguished arm, head and chin sitting on the ground next to a small clam shell. In the background is cleared land on which there are a number of small mounds and behind this bamboo and vines. [Jude Philp 28/5/1999, from record N.23239.ACH2, JD 11/5/2011]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Australia; Torres Strait; Mer

Cultural Affliation

Torres Strait Islander

Named Person

Jimmy Dei

Photographer

Wilkin, Anthony

Collector / Expedition

Haddon, Alfred Cort [Cambridge University Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Straits, 1898 - 1899]

Date

1898

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon CollectionTorres Strait Island Expedition

Source

Haddon, Alfred Cort (Dr)

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Publication: Printed in Reports VI: IV fig. 4 captioned “Ai geres and her basket (212)”. Haddon writes: “Ai geres .. was formerly placed in the garden of the wife of Jimmy Dei (Sebeg, 4B) which was situated on the hill of Ai.... She ensured good crops of yams.
The effigy is 42cm. in height, the head was broken off, but was put in position to be photographed, only the arms are carved ... The figure and the ‘basket of food’ [the shell and stone within it] are in the Cambridge Museum. It is made of local lava (VI: 212)."

MAA Exhibition: Same image, paired with P.980.ACH1, included in 1920s Exhibition Case Binders "Cases 5-10. Torres Strait." (OA2/16/4) with the following information: "50, 51. Ai geres on Mer. (Case 9)
On the hill of Ai in a yam garden was a rudely carved stone said to represent a woman named Geres. No. 50 shows the stone in the garden and No. 51 is a nearer view of her a clam shell containing a pebble, these were her basket and food. She ensured good crops of yams. Every evening Ai geres called out to the zogo stones of the surrounding gardens and scoffed at them for having dark earth and not red earth like hers: 'I have red earth in my garden!' she said, and as a matter of fact the colour of the soil in the spot is an especially bright red.
Vol. VI, pp. 212, 203.
Photo. taken in 1898 by A. Wilkin." [JD 15/09/2021]