IDNO

P.9260.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “House in rubber belt of Issa valley”.

View of an 'European'-style two-storey 'house' in the 'rubber belt' of the Issa Valley. The building has a first-floor balcony, which is open-sided, and a thatched roof. A group of approximately twenty-one South American Indian men are standing in a line in front of building, with the majority wearing trousers, and carrying loads on their backs with straps across their heads. Two European? or Peruvian? men holding rifles are standing at the front of the line of Indians, to the left, and a dog is in the left foreground. A group of Peruvian? men, wearing “European” style clothing, are looking over first floor balcony. Three women, possibly South American Indian, wearing “European” style clothing are sitting on the balcony on the left. One woman is holding a young child. A second similar building is in the background. [TC 01/06/1999, updated JD 21/10/2019]

Place

S America; Colombia; North West Amazon; Putumayo River; near Iça River; ?Issa Valley [Iça River; Issa River]

Cultural Affliation

South American Peoples; South American Indian; ?Peruvian; ?European

Named Person

Photographer

Whiffen, Thomas William

Collector / Expedition

Date

1908 - 1909

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon CollectionWhiffen Collection

Source

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Publication: Image reproduced in Whiffen, T. W., 1915 as Pl. I, with the caption “Houses in the ‘Rubber Belt’ of the Issa Valley.” [TC 01/06/1999]

Publication: Image reproduced in Paternoster, G. S., 1913 opposite page 224, with the caption “Rubber Station in Clearing. (Hut built and clearing made by natives.)”. Paternoster states that most of the images in his book were taken by Robuchon. However, this image may be an exception. See Whiffen Collection record for further details. [TC 01/06/1999]

Related Image: A duplicate print is at the RAI, reference 36190, and annotated by Whiffen in pencil on the reverse as "Houses in the ‘Rubber Belt’, Issa Valley."
Photocopies of Whiffen prints at the RAI are in the UCMAA archive, reference W19/1/3. See Whiffen Collection record for further details on RAI collection. [TC 09/06/1999, updated JD 02/10/2019]

Context: The setting is probably a Peruvian Amazon Company rubber-station. The people depicted are probably employees of the company and the buildings may be houses used by them. Whiffen notes that dogs are not domesticated by Indians in the region (Whiffen, T. W., 1915: 102). The dog depicted in this image, therefore, probably belongs to a Latin American employee of the Peruvian Amazon Company. [TC 01/06/1999]