IDNO

LS.109256.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: "Mabuiag
native full face, photog. by Finsch" [manuscript in ink]

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.708.ACH1: "Man, full. Finsch."

Head and shoulders portrait of a Mabuiag Island man, Gaigai [sic Gagai], with beard, close-cropped hair and bare chest, and facing the camera. The perforation through his nose can be clearly seen. [Jude Philp 11/3/1999, updated JD 9/11/2009,name updated JD 06/01/2021]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Australia; Torres Strait; Mabuiag

Cultural Affliation

Torres Strait Islander

Named Person

Gagai [Gaigai]; Damat

Photographer

Finsch, Otto (Dr)

Collector / Expedition

Haddon, Alfred Cort

Date

4 - 15 November 1881

Collection Name

Teaching Slide CollectionHaddon Unmounted Collection

Source

Haddon, Alfred Cort (Dr)

Format

Lantern Slide Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Photographer: Haddon notes that ‘his good friend’ Dr Otto Finsch was at Mabuiag November 1882. The glass plate negative envelope identifies this as one of his Mabuiag photographs. [Jude Philp 6/2/1998, from record P.46987.ACH2, JD 8/10/2010]

Bibliographical Reference: From Report I: page 13 "Dr O Finsch, who explored so much of the northern coast of New Guinea, paid a visit to Torres Straits in 1882, but did not find much there to interest him as a collector." [Jude Philp 6/2/1998, from record P.46987.ACH2, JD 8/10/2010]

Publication: Image published in 'Between wealth and poverty: Otto Finsch on Mabuyag, 1881' by Hilary Howes. In Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture Volume 8
Part 1, 2015, p.237 and captioned: "FIG. 7. Photograph by Otto Finsch (c.1881) Man, full. Gaigai [sic], Dugoi, Bagub (tabu) Mabuiag, married Damat, Kubi, (Kaigan) Mabuiag. Checked by A.C.H. [Haddon] 1898. N.22992.ACH2. Reproduction courtesy of the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge."
Related text on p.236 includes: "While on Mabuyag he produced plaster casts of a total of eight locals. Seven were men: Gauri, around 30 years old; Mau and Gagai, both approximately 35 years old ... These casts, however, were not fated to join those listed in Finsch’s descriptive catalogue: all eight of them, together with those depicting people from Cape York Peninsula, were ‘irretrievably lost’ as a result of the ‘negligence’ of Finsch’s agent on Thursday Island. ...
In addition to the ill-fated plaster casts, Finsch took photographs of Gauri, Mau, Gagai, Au-ub and Gaiba, and obtained hair samples from each of them. Although the hair samples, unlike the casts, reached Berlin safely, they subsequently went missing." [JD 06/01/2021]

Date: The date was previously recorded as "November 1882" based on Haddon's note, but it is noted in Otto Finsch's fieldwork journals that he departed Thursday Island for Mabuyag on 4 November 1881. (Finsch, 1881-82: 81-83).
"Finsch departed Mabuyag on 15 November 1881, reaching Thursday Island the following day. He spent 20 November – 22 December 1881 in Somerset, far north Queensland, returning to Thursday Island just before Christmas, and in January 1882 departed Torres Strait for south-east New Guinea (Finsch, 1881-82: 118-150)." [Source: Howes 2015, pp.224, 247, JD 06/01/2021]