IDNO

P.99932.VH

Description

Portrait of a chief (right) identified as Tui Dreketi and another man at “Lakemba [Lakeba] Vanualevu”, dressed in ceremonial or war dress, with liku overskirts over their malo loincloths, which are worn girded high up under their chests in the challenging malowala fashion. Mid to late 1870s.
See P.52436.VH, P.87385.VH, P.87384.VH, P.87341.VH, and P.99935.VH which show the same building in the background. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, updated JD 23/1/2012]

Portrait of two Fijian men, both dressed in war, dance or ceremonial dress, with their white barkcloth malo loincloths girded high up under their ribs in the challenging malowala manner, and with striped and dyed pandanus leaf overskirts and barkcloth waistbands. Both wear batinivuaka boar tusk pendants. and vesa armbands, and have the muscles beneath the knee braced by black vesasausauwai bindings fringed with trade beads. The man at left has a decorative comb or iseruraba in his hair, whilst the man at right - Tui Dreketi? - has his white hair girded by a dark band - an old habit dating from the days of the pagan “big heads”, and holds an iirimasei or iirisakiki fan, made from a leaf of the niumasei or niusakiki fan-palm, Pritchardia pacifica.
See also P.87386.VH, P.87341.VH, & P.87342.VH, all of which were taken on the same formal occasion. Photograph taken against the same vale and on the same occasion as P.87384.VH (the kaka spear and sali club of the man in P.87384.VH can be seen behind the left hand man).
Mid to late 1870s. See P.99932.VH. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003, from record P.87385.VH, updated JD 26/11/2011]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Lau Group; Lakeba Island

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Tui Dreketi

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1874 - 1879

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. [A. Nadin, 24/9/2003]