IDNO

P.99755.VH

Description

F.H. Dufty photograph of A.J.L. Gordon’s sketch of Kai Colo or Vitilevu highland fighters in 1876. See P.87488.VH for details. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

Photograph of an 1876 drawing by Arthur J. L. Gordon of “Heathen dress Mountaineers”, or “Cai [Kai] Colo with ‘big-heads’ (‘Ulu-levu’)”. [ululevu = “big head”]. The man leaning on his primed but thankfully only half-cocked “Brown Bess” flintlock musket has an imilamila head-scratching cum hairdressing needle stuck in his hair and a saunidaliga ear ornament through his right ear lobe. The others are dressed in malo loincloths, with one holding an iirisakiki or iirimasei chief’s or priest’s “fighting fan” cum sunshade made from a fan palm (Pritchardia pacifica) in his left hand. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003, from record P.87488.VH, JD 8/1/2012]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji

Cultural Affliation

Kai Colo [historically Big Head Mountaineers]

Named Person

Photographer

Gordon, Arthur J.L. [Original Artist]; Dufty, Francis Herbert (Dufty Brothers, Levuka)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

post 1876

Collection Name

von Hügel Collection

Source

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.99725.VH to P.99758.VH were in the belted folder now numbered C539/1/. This was formerly kept in paper archive Large Box G; VH1/4/5. It has now been transferred to the photo archive. The lists describing the contents of this box have been returned to the Paper Archive.

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund. [A. Nadin, 4/9/2003]