IDNO

N.26800.WHI

Description

View of “innundated country” with a “raft made of a bulging-stem palm” in the foreground. Four South American Indians, probably some of Whiffen’s “carriers”, are wading in the river next to the raft. The man on the left is holding a paddle.

Gelatin emulsion lifting away from glass plate along bottom edge. Silver mirroring along top, left and right hand edges and some darker areas of emulsion. Small sections of emulsion missing from corners. Staining at top right corner. Small chip from glass plate at bottom left hand corner and crack at bottom right hand corner. [TC 09/06/1999]

Place

S America; Colombia; North West Amazon

Cultural Affliation

South American Indian

Named Person

Photographer

Whiffen, Thomas William

Collector / Expedition

Date

1908 - 1909

Collection Name

Whiffen Collection

Source

Format

Glass Negative Halfplate

Primary Documentation

Other Information

See also record for LS.26713.WHI for additional sources of information about this image.

Related Image: A duplicate print is at the RAI, reference 36155, and annotated by Whiffen in pencil on the reverse as "Forerunners of party - inundated country."
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 22/10/2019]

The people depicted are probably Whiffen’s “carriers”, as described in Whiffen, T. W., 1915 (pp. 2-4). He explains that at the beginning of his expedition he “collected eight Indian carriers, two half-castes, and eight “rationales”, or semi-civilised Indians, armed with Winchesters, together with three Indian women, wives of three of the rationales” (ibid: 3).

The glass negatives in the Whiffen Collection were previously stored in two wooden trays numbered “Trays 105” on Shelf 3. Some of the glass negatives were found by the cataloguer in one of these trays, which was numbered C59/ by the cataloguer. The others were loose in piles on the shelf. An address label found in C59/ is addressed to a member of the Whiffen family and dated 1960. The label is now in the UCMAA archive, reference number W19/1/1. Each glass negative was stored, with duplicate glass negatives if any, in a museum archival bag. The bags containing images for which there is a corresponding mounted print in the Haddon Collection were marked with the original number of that print. A note by Gwil Owen which distinguished the printed and unprinted piles of glass negatives is now in the UCMAA archive, reference number W19/1/2. For full details see the Whiffen Collection record.