IDNO

P.9278.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Group of Regisero women.”

On catalogue card for : "N.W. Amazon. 175.59, 60.
Regisero [sic Resigero] women.”

A group portrait of nine Resigero women standing in row outdoors posing facing the camera. The women are wearing bead neck-ornaments with discs, wrist-ornaments and leg and ankle ligatures. One is also wearing ear-ornaments. The woman at the left is carrying a young child on her back.
The women are standing in front of a large shrub, and possibly a malokas (Indian communal house) has been masked out of the background. [TC 01/06/1999, updated JD 10/10/2019]

Place

S America; Colombia; North West Amazon

Cultural Affliation

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

LS.26743.WHI is a slightly narrower view. P.9278.ACH1 and LS.26743.WHI are both details of N.26843.WHI, which includes fifteen women. [TC 01/06/1999]

Related Image: A duplicate print is at the RAI, reference 36150, and annotated by Whiffen in pencil on the reverse as "Resigero."
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]

Bibliography Reference: The discs on the women's necklaces are probably coins. Whiffen explains that "smelting, or any description of metallurgy, cannot be looked for among the inhabitants of a country so singularly devoid of all metalliferous deposit or formation...their only method of working metal when obtained is to heat and hammer it into various forms and shapes for ornaments" (Whiffen, T. W., 1915: 93-94). He states that "the pendants...are mostly coins, depreciated Chilean dollars as a rule...either given to the wearers by me or had filtered through from the Rubber Belt; a few...through the medium of intertribal barter". He notes that "they are always the most rare and cherished possessions" (ibid: 80-81). [TC 01/06/1999]