IDNO

P.99929.VH

Description

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.4102.ACH1: “17 plates of Fijians.” [typed text]

See P.4102.ACH1. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

Two studio portraits of two Rewa chiefs in ceremonial or festive dress, both holding iuladrisia throwing clubs.
The moustached man in the left portrait wears a decorative comb at the back of his traditional but not overtly pre-Christian hairstyle. He wears a white masi barkcloth iwabale shoulder sash, and has the long train of his white malo loincloth wrapped round his waist, forming a broad multilayered sash that laps over the waist of his multicoloured, striped pandanus leaf kilt. Round his neck is a trade bead necklace with trailing beaded tail strings, with a small spotted cowrie shell (??) pendant at the centre of his throat. Vesa wrappings stung with trade beads brace his legs below the knee.
Ratu Epeli Vakacaracara, the bearded man in the right portrait is similarly dressed and also has a reasonably conservative traditional hairstyle, acceptable by Wesleyan standards. His masikuvui sash and malo loincloth have been oiled and smoked however (masikuvui, oiled and smoked barkcloth, was in itself a badge of rank), and his kilt is a black likusausauwai, made from the wiry runners of a heartrot wood fungus that grows in swampy places. Round his neck is a necklace of what look like rounded white shells, in each case interspersed with a pair of much smaller ones. His legs too are braced by vesa wrappings.
Early to mid 1870s. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, from record P.4102.ACH1, updated JD 6/11/2011]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; ?Levuka; Southeast Vitilevu; Rewa

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Ratu Epeli Vakacaracara

Photographer

?Dufty Brothers, Levuka

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1870 - 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.

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund.