IDNO

P.87338.VH

Description

Dufty studio portrait of two Christian Fijian men dressed for ceremony or war. Both have jungle fowl cock tail-feathers in their hair and wear batinivuaka or boar tusk pendants. Their white barkcloth malo loincloths are fastened high up under their chests in the defiant malowala style, and both wear liku overskirts of striped and pleated pandanus leaf as a concession to their Christianity. The man at left wears the fringed white barkcloth iwabale shoulder sash of a chief, and has a white malo wrapping round his right arm above the elbow, another symbol of rank. Below the knee his leg muscles are braced with beaded sausauwai or waloa wrappings. His club is a kiakavo.
Circa 1875-1876. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Levuka

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Dufty Brothers, Levuka (Dufty, Francis Herbert)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1875 - 1876

Collection Name

Von Hugel Collection

Source

Format

Carte-de-visite; Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.87321.VH to P.87342.VH were in the envelope now numbered C512/4/. This envelope came from the Museum’s paper archive envelope VH1/4/7, which has now been re-numbered C512/.

Related Image: This print or negative appears to be a unique image within the MAA Photograph Collections. [JD 27/12/2011]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Program One. [A. Nadin, 2/7/2003]