IDNO

N.129736.HNL

Description

View of a dugout canoe resting on a beach with a close up of an oculi on the stern in Mayotte, Comoros. [FC 03/02/2016]

Physical Condition: Scratches are present. [FC 03/02/2016]

Place

E Africa; Indian Ocean; Comoros Islands; Mayotte

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Hornell, James

Collector / Expedition

Hornell, James [?visit to Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Aldabra and Seychelles [1926]

Date

1926

Collection Name

Hornell Collection

Source

Hornell, Charlotte (Mrs)

Format

Film Negative Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.129703.HNL - P.129945.HNL were found unaccessioned in Drawer C.44.21 of the Photo Store, in a cardboard box, now numbered C703/.

N.129734.HNL - N.129738.HNL were found in a buff envelope, now numbered C703/3.

Context: James Hornell writes "Boat Oculi Survivals: Additional Records" (Jul. - Dec., 1938) The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 68;
"In Mayotte, the island nearest to Madagascar, the oculus is comparatively common, whereas at Johanna or Anjouan none was noticed on either of two visits in 1926. Those seen at Mayotte occurred both on large sailing outrigger canoes, sometimes furnished with a deep washstrake, and also on small outrigged dug-outs. In all cases the oculi were painted both on the bows and the quarters.
In the larger of these craft the after end, slightly sheered, terminated in a sharp point; the fore end, prolonged horizontally, was of the clipper-bow type but had the point cut off, giving it a truncate appearance. A short distance abaft the fore end a transverse projection, a miniature breakwater, rose vertically, forming with the blunt, forward directed stemhead a bifid prow with a rough resemblance to an animal's head (? a camel). A similar vertical projection occurred just on the fore side of the pointed after end of the canoe (Fig. 1, C, D).
In the small dug-out canoes each end was sharp, curved, and without added parts.
The oculus, whether on the large canoes or the small dug-outs, was similar, a white ring with a black centre, painted on a dark ground either coloured or of the natural deep tint of old wood. Above the oculus a long deeply sinuous line of white extended from a point on the cutwater a few inches from the stemhead to a point on the gunwale behind the little breakwater (Fig. 1, C). The roughly triangular space thus enclosed was painted black. The sinuous white line is probably a highly conventionalized eyebrow, for in one example where the hull was unpainted the eyebrow line was less angularly curved than usual, and was distinctly suggestive of an eyebrow (Fig. 1, E). In the smallest of the canoes the curves became zigzags (Fig. 1, F)" (345).