IDNO

P.99864.VH

Description

Ro Matanitobua, Tui Namosi, before he was converted to Christianity, with attendant with fan.
Circa 1869 - early 1870s. See P.87353.VH for details. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

Studio portrait of Ro Matanitobua, chief of Namosi in the southern highlands of Vitilevu, seated in a chair. He is wearing a white barkcloth malo loincloth, the chiefly trail or maloyara of which is tucked into the waistband of his malo for convenience of movement. Above his left elbow he wears a gato bracelet cut from a sici or trochus shell. His massive pre-Christian hairstyle is ornamented with a tuft of what look like pale striped and frizzled vovoi pandanus leaf streamers on his left, and by other ornaments on his right.
His attendant sitting cross-legged is a Kai Colo from Namosi in the southern highlands of Vitilevu, wearing a white barkcloth malo loincloth and a batinivuaka boar tusk pendant with beaded strings. His lime-bleached sandy-coloured hair - perhaps a human hair wig or ulumate (literally “dead head”) in this instance - is arranged in one of the flamboyant, pricked out hairstyles of pre-Christian Fiji. In his right hand he is holding an iirimasei chief’s or priest’s fan made from a single leaf of the niumasei or niusakiki fan palm, Pritchardia pacifica.
Circa 1869-1871. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, from record P.87322.VH and P.87322.VH, updated JD 15/1/2012]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Vitilevu; Namosi; Levuka

Cultural Affliation

Kai Colo [historically Big Head Mountaineers]

Named Person

Ro Matanitobua

Photographer

Dufty Brothers, Levuka (Dufty, Francis Herbert)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1869 - 1875

Collection Name

von Hügel Collection

Source

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.99726.VH to P.100050.VH were in the belted folder now numbered C539/3/. 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.

Photographer: This print was provisionally attributed to “?Dufty Brothers, Levuka”, but Dufty’s Levuka studio is recognisable through the backdrop of foliage, including banana leaves, to the right and the pineapple? plant to the left. The same iirimasei chief’s or priest’s fan, made from a single leaf with regular spacing and spaced fringing, only appears in Dufty’s early photographs with the above mentioned foliage. This configuration of studio props appears to be used by Dufty between circa 1870 - 1875. [JD 12/3/2012]

Related Image: This print or negative appears to be the original image at MAA from which the associated photographs have been derived from. [JD 15/1/2012]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund. [A. Nadin, 10/9/2003]