IDNO

P.4912.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: Man wearing armour.

On Catalogue Card for duplicate image LS.120842.TC1: “Micronesia.
Gilbert Island.
Man dressed in old fighting armour.” [typed text]
“(see also No.3).” [manuscript in ink]

“One of the senior students at Ronorono [sic Rongorongo] Training College.” [Eastman's? annotation on LS.120842.TC1]

A warrior wearing an armour shirt and leggings woven from coconut fibre [sinnet], a back-shield and puffer-fish helmet. holding a spear studded with shark’s teeth. [Mark Elliott 27/04/2004]

Full-length portrait of a Kiribati roro-buraka (warrior), possibly an officer of the Gilbertese Army, dressed in traditional war kit and carrying a coconut-wood lance with a double-edge of sharks teeth. (Traditional the sharks teeth are tied into place with a kind of rope made from one strand of coconut fibre and one of the boy's hairs taken during a hair-cutting ceremony.) The plaited coir (coconut fibre) armour consists of a te tuta (short shirt or jersey) with diamond-shaped motifs probably worked in black human hair, trousers, and a te otana (cuirass), which has a back plate that protected the head and neck from coral rocks. (These were thrown at his enemy by his female relatives who would stand behind him.) The te katibana (belt) is of woven coir twine, or dried ray skin, 7-10 inches broad, worn around the body as protection from spears. The te barantauti (helmet) is made from the inflated, dried carcase of a porcupine-fish, a close relative of the puffer-fish. The man has bare feet. As the armour is heavy and stiff, making movement difficult, each warrior had an assistant who passed him his weapons. [JD 9/8/2007]

Place

Oceania Micronesia; Kiribati [Gilbert Islands]

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Eastman, George Hubert (Rev.)

Collector / Expedition

Date

pre 1925

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon Collection

Source

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Clothing: Information on clothing provided by Faustina Rehuher, Belau National Museum for the Republic of Palau, the National Museums Liverpool ‘Top Treasures’, www.diduknow.info/top/porcupine_fh.html#, The British Museum, www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aoa/s/suit_of_armour.aspx, and from ‘Kiribati - the Early Gilbertese Wars’, www.janeresture.com/kiriwars/index.htm. [JD 9/8/2007]

This catalogue record was updated with the support of the Getty Grant Foundation [Mark Elliott 27/4/2004]