IDNO

P.99964.VH

Description

F.H. Dufty studio portrait of a youthful chief of Tokatoka, Rewa, southeast Vitilevu. Apart from a beaded necklet, he has an heirloom vorovoro necklace of white Ovula costellata egg-cowry shells, made from paired chiefly throat pendants that have had their tops stove in and which have been strung together through their mouth slits, round his neck. [See F.Clunie, ‘Yalo i Viti’, 1986, artefact 105 and notes on pp.158-9 for the implications of this ornament]. He is dressed for ceremony or war, with a pandanus leaf liku covering his malo loincloth (which is girded high up under his ribs in the challenging malowala manner) from the hips down, and a fringed white barkcloth iwabale or shoulder sash. His calf muscles are braced with fringed and beaded vesa wrappings, braided from the wiry runners of the waloa or sausauwai, a rhizomorphoid fungus, and he is holding a musket or rifle bayonet. Note the cicatrices on upper left arm. Against the wall in the background leans a studio prop in the form of a Tongan club that appears in other Dufty portraits of the time, including P.4117.ACH1 and P.87351.VH. See P.99945.VH and P.99931.VH.
Circa 1875-1876. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Levuka; southeast Vitilevu; Rewa; Tokatoka

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Dufty, Francis Herbert (Dufty Brothers, Levuka)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1875 - 1876

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 is recognisable as Dufty’s Levuka studio through the painted studio backdrop to represent a view out a window with shutters (note the knob added to the shutter that casts a shadow). This appears to be a feature of Dufty’s studio throughout the 1870s, although the idealised landscape ‘view’ changes around 1875-1876. The Photographer, Date, and Place fields have been amended accordingly. [JD 16/3/2012]

Related Image: This print or negative appears to be the original image at MAA from which the associated photographs have been derived from. [JD 22/1/2012]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund. [A. Nadin, 13/10/2003]