IDNO

N.23037.ACH2

Description

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.756.ACH1: “Visual acuity, Mabuiag”
[note this card and card for P.755.ACH1 refer to numbers P.753.ACH1, P.754.ACH1 and vice versa. This should read “Colour wheel, inside, Mabuiag”]

William Rivers and Tom, a Mabuiag man and one of Haddon’s chief assistants, demonstrating the use of the colour wheel for testing visual acuity. Seated behind Tom is Gizu, another of Haddon’s Mabuiag assistants, while a group of Islanders watch on from behind. The photograph is taken inside the former LMS mission house where the team set up their ‘Anthropological Laboratory’, as well as lived. On the table is also a box containing Holmgren’s wools used for testing colour vision. [JD 22/5/2011]

Inside a house Tom stands leaning over a machine with three wheels which is placed on a table. Another man with his back to the camera [?Rivers] is seated and looks at the machine. Also inside the house are a number of other Islanders, and Gizu can be clearly seen seated directly behind Tom. The table is crowded with books and a box of wool. [Jude Philp 15/3/1999]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Australia; Torres Strait; Mabuiag [Mabuyag]

Cultural Affliation

Torres Strait Islander

Named Person

Naboa (Tom); Gizu; William Rivers

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

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

Date

September 1898

Collection Name

Torres Strait Island ExpeditionHaddon Collection

Source

Haddon, Alfred Cort (Dr)

Format

Glass Negative Quarterplate

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This negative was kept in an envelope marked C48/59/ by the cataloguer. The envelope was kept in box marked C48/ by the cataloguer. The envelope is now re-housed in Neg. Env. Box 9 which is stored in Storage Box B in the Photo Archive room.

Place: This house appears to be the old mission house where the Expedition members stayed and where they stored much of their equipment. The box on the table probably contain Holgren’s Wools, a colour test using different shades of dyed wool, which Rivers found most useful in his experiments (see especially Report II: 49). [Jude Philp 10/3/1998]

Named Person: Tom (9a) and Gizu (2) were known personally to many of the Expedition members (Reports V, p.123), they appear in many photographs and are referred to often in the Reports. [Jude Philp 10/3/1998]

Publication: This image was reproduced in Richards, G. (1998). ‘Getting a Result: the Expedition’s psychological research 1898-1913’, in Herle, A. & S. Rouse (eds). Cambridge and the Torres Strait : centenary essays on the 1898 Anthropological Expedition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. p. 162. Figure 7.1, Captioned: “Rivers testing visual perception in the former London Missionary Society church house. Tom responding to the colour cheel with Gizu seated behind him. On the table is a box containting Holmgren’s wools used for the investigation of colour vision. Mabuiag, 1898.” [Mark Elliott 26/5/2004]

Publication: This image was reproduced in Herle, A. & J. Philp (1998). Torres Strait Islanders: An Exhibition Marking the Centenary of the 1898 Cambridge ANthropological Expedition. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Museum of Arhaeology and Anthropology. p. 29.
Captioned: “Rivers and Tom (of Mabuiag) demonstrating the use of the colour wheel for testing visual acuity. Seated behind Tom is Gizu. The photograph is taken inside the former LMS mission house where the team lived and worked. On the table is a box containing Holmgren’s wools used for testing colour vision. Mabuiag, 1898.” [Mark Elliott 26/5/2004]

Publication: Image published in 'Recording Kastom: Alfred Haddon’s Journals from his Expeditions to the Torres Strait and New Guinea, 1888–89, 1898–99', Edited by Anita Herle and Jude Philp (Sydney University Press), Fig 0.18, and captioned: "Inside the ‘anthropological laboratory’ set up in the former LMS mission house where the expedition members lived and worked. Rivers is demonstrating the colour wheel to Naboa (Tom), with Gizu seated behind. Mabuiag, Torres Strait, September 1898. MAA N.23037." [JD 06/03/2020]

CUMAA Exhibition: The original print, P.45157.ACH2, was displayed in Assembling Bodies, May 2009 - November 2010 in the Anthropology & Photography sections. [JD 1/12/2010]

Bibliographical Reference: For more information on how Rivers, Myers, MacDougall and Seligman conducted their visual acuity tests, and particularly this E test see Reports II: 1903 Part 1: 48 - 96. [Jude Philp 10/3/1998]

Publication: The photograph has been digitised for the European Collected Library of Artistic Performance (ECLAP) and is accessible on the portal http://www.eclap.eu/drupal/. [SG 31/10/2012]