IDNO

P.85339.MUS

Description

On display case label for 1925.374:
"Putatara.
Trumpet of triton shell (charonia capax) with wooden mouthpiece and original flax modulator.
Maori. New Zealand
Cook Collection
(ex-Pennant Collection)
d. Earl of Denbigh." [Alex Nadin, 18/3/2003]

Documentary photograph of the opening side of a "Conch shell, with wooden mouth piece and the original modulator. The shell has been broken and mended with wood. Made with stone tools (according to D. R. Simmons of the Auckland Museum).
Additional description: Trumpet of triton shell (charonia capax) with wooden mouthpiece and original flax modulator. Mouthpiece decorated with raised and incised design, and attached to shell with string and ?resin. Rough outer surface. Underside has piece of ?wood attached to body of shell." [from MAA Object record 1925.374, JD 12/3/2010]

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Europe British Isles; New Zealand; United Kingdom; North Island; ?Taranaki; England; Cambridge; Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology [Aotearoa]

Cultural Affliation

Maori

Named Person

Photographer

?Museum Photographer

Collector / Expedition

Cook Collection; Earl of Denbigh; Pennant Collection [Object Collector and Donor]

Date

Collection Name

Museum Objects and Galleries

Source

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.85326 to P.85347 were found inside envelope now numbered C414/17/ which came from the box formerly numbered 162, now re-numbered C414/.

Collector: The Earl of Denbigh permitted the curator of CUMAA, Baron A. von Hugel, to select material of ethnographic and archaeological interest from the David Pennant Collection at Downing Hall. This was done prior to its dispersal in 1912. The present object was originally collected by Cook and was later given by Sir Joseph Banks to Pennant; Exhibited: On display in the Maudslay Hall, CUMAA, from 1990; Collected by: Pennant Collection.

Bibliographical Reference: See ‘Artificial Curiosities’ (1978), A. Kaeppler, p.184. Evidence: Pennant collection. Given by Forster, second voyage. Kaeppler states (p.181), ‘Maori sound-producers for music and ritual were pre-eminently wind instruments’. Also see Gathercole, 1976, pp.187-199. Shawcross, 1970, pp.337-338. Depictions: Cook 1777, Plate 19; British Library Add. Ms. 15,508.32 (Figs.353, 354). (J.Tanner, May 1998). Also see ‘The Moari Collection at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’ by Peter Gathercole in ‘Taonga Maori Conference’ (1990). (J.Tanner, November 1998). See ‘From Pacific Shores: Eighteenth-century Ethnographic Collections at Cambridge - The Voyages of Cook, Vancouver and the First Fleet’ (J. Tanner, 1999:31).

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).

CUMAA Exhibition: This object is on display in the main New Zealand case in the Maudsley Gallery.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program One. [Alex Nadin, 20/3/2003].