IDNO

P.85312.MUS

Description

Documentary photograph of a "Large feast bowl which is boat shaped and has a prow in the shape of a bird, ?eagle, and a high stern. The edges of the bowl are grooved on the inside, while the outside rim and edge is slightly notched. The eagle is stylised with an eye that is a hole bored through the wood. Fair condition. There is a crack running from the stern to the middle of the bowl - old repair consisting of two holes on either side of crack attached with string." [from Object record 1922.946, JD 11/3/2010]

Place

N America; Europe British Isles; Canada; United Kingdom; British Columbia; England; Cambridge; Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology

Cultural Affliation

Northwest Coast Indian; ?Nuu-chah-nulth [historically Nootka]

Named Person

Photographer

?Museum Photographer

Collector / Expedition

Cook Collection; Clarke, Louis Colville Gray; Leverian Museum; Widdicombe House [Object Collector and Donor]

Date

Collection Name

Museum Objects and Galleries

Source

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.85290 to P.85317 were found inside envelope now numbered C414/15/ which came from the box formerly numbered 162, now re-numbered C414/.

Although the archived notebook was found in envelope C414/15/ it appears to relate to all the prints found inside the box numbered C414/.

These are images of museum specimens.

Related Object: Entry in Note field for MAA Object record 1922.946 states:
"Given the association with Captain Cook and the style of this bowl it is possible to suggest it is Nootkan or Nuu-Chah-Nulth (G.Crowther). The original European tribal names and, where possible, current tribal names have both been given in separate GLT fields.; Bowls were used at feasts and potlatches, the smaller ones containing oolichan grease, into which dried salmon and other foods were dipped, and larger ones containing other foodstuffs. Together with the decorated spoons of mountain-goat horn the bowls represented a tangible connection between the owners, the lineage, and the economic resources consumed during the feast or potlatch. The display of crest bearing objects underlined the power structure operating at ceremonial events, and demarcated them as significant and removed from everyday existence. The representations carved on some bowls are deliberately ambiguous, thereby allowing a crest identity to be asserted by each owner as the object is exchanged. This bowl was possibly steamed in order to extend the girth, the same technique was used for steaming canoes (G.Crowther).; Exhibited: CUMAA old Anthropological displays, Case 36, dismantled 22081986.; Collected by: ?Gordon.Admiral; ?Cook.Captain in 1778.

Bibliographical Reference: See ‘Artificial Curiosities’ (1978), A. Kaeppler, p.262 and figures 579-580, p.263. Evidence: Leverian Museum. 3rd voyage. Also see the ‘Catalogue of the Northwest Coast Collection: Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’ (1996), Dr Gillian Crowther. (J.Tanner, May 1998). See ‘From Pacific Shores: Eighteenth-century Ethnographic Collections at Cambridge - The Voyages of Cook, Vancouver and the First Fleet’ (J. Tanner, 1999:71). See ‘Artificial Curiosities from the Northwest Coast of America (J.C.H. King, 1981: cf. Colour Plate 2; 49).

Cook Collection: Captain James Cook undertook three world voyages around the globe from 1768 - 1779. The stated purpose of the first voyage (1768-1771) on the HMS Endeavour was to send a Royal Society team to observe the transit of the planet Venus from the vantage point of newly discovered Tahiti. However, the primary governmental motivation behind the first expedition was to establish the existence of 'Terra Australis Incognita' or the 'Great Southern Continent', which was believed to exist in order to balance the great northern land mass. Cook set sail from Plymouth on Friday 26th August 1768 and headed to South America, round Cape Horn and westwards to carry out the experiment in Tahiti, and then went on to circumnavigate the globe in pursuit of the presumed continent. The purpose of the second voyage (1772-1775) on the HMS Resolution and the HMS Adventure was to extend the search for the 'southern continent'. They sailed from Plymouth on 27 June 1772 and headed directly south past Cape Town and then set out on an eastward course of circumnavigation, crossing the Antartic Circle several times en route in an effort to seek the imagined continent. The third voyage (1776-1780) on the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, was concerned with the search for a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They sailed from Plymouth on 13th July 1772, heading first for the Society Islands from whence they set course to search for the Northwest Passage. However, Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779 and his command was taken up by Charles Clerke.
More than 2000 extant pieces can be traced from Cook's voyages (Kaeppler:1978), of which UCMAA has 215 identified objects. The majority of the material at UCMAA was collected from the Pacific, but also includes objects from the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America, the Northeast Coast of Asia and Tierra del Fuego in South America. Furthermore, all the three voyages are represented by objects in UCMAA's collection.
(J. Tanner, 1999)."