- Museum number
- Oc1900,0721.1
- Description
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Wooden war canoe prow, tauihu (tuere) brown, carved on both sides. Elongated manaia with rolling spirals on bodies and triangular clear patches. Interstitial openwork of loops and spirals including hands of manaia figures, all in unaunahi over v-shaped groove. Heads of manaia in unaunahi. Rauponga along upper margin interspersed with unaunahi. Line of taratara-a-kai on nose of rear manaia.
- Production date
- 18thC
- Dimensions
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Height: 90 centimetres
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Thickness: 3 centimetres
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Width: 112 centimetres (141.0 (Hooper))
- Curator's comments
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Illustrated in D.C. Starzecka (ed), 'Maori : Art and Culture', London, British Museum Press, 1996, p.100, plate 64
See D. Simmons, 'Whakairo Maori Tribal Art', 1985, p.67
illustrated in Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1899, Vol. II (N.S)
Both Roger Neich and David Simmons identify this as being made in Hokianga in the 18th century.
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Hooper 2006
A large panel-style canoe prow (tuere) of the kind seen in the eighteenth century (Joppien, R. and Smith, B., 1985:, 'The art of Captain Cook's voyages,' 3 vols in 4. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. I:198-9, 202), but which seems to have been superseded in the early nineteenth century by the type with a projecting figurehead (also present in the eighteenth century). Four sinuous creatures are integrated into the overall design. Canoes (waka) were among the most elaborately carved structures made in New Zealand, symbolically and metaphorically important in that they acted as a kind of mobile chiefly house, the chief embodying the whole 'tribe'. Confederations of tribes who traced descent from original voyaging canoes were also called waka.
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Provenance: Purchased from Rollin & Feuardent, originally acquired from Passmore.
Comments: Hokianga, eighteenth century. Arthur D. Passmore, Imperial Yeomanry, offered the prow for sale to the Museum: ‘I have lately purchased from the Bennett collection at Farringdon a beautifully carved piece of a New Zealand work made for the stern of a canoe.’ (BM PE correspondence: Passmore, 18 December 1899). Read sent Passmore a cheque on 15 January 1900: ‘Dear Sir, Herewith the cheque for the New Zealand carving…’ (BM PE correspondence: Read to Passmore, 15 January 1900), but according to the Register the prow was bought from Rollin & Feuardent.
References: Archey 1933: 180, pl. 11a; Archey 1956: 372, pl. 66.1; and 1977: 60, fig.114; Edge-Partington 1899b: 305, pl. xxx; Edge-Partington 1900a: 42; and 1900c: 40; Hooper 2006: 128.64; Neich 1996b: 100–1; Simmons 1985: 67, fig. 60.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
1990 20 Oct-9 Dec, Japan, Tokyo, Setagaya Art Museum, Treasures of the British Museum, cat. no.233
1991 5 Jan-20 Feb, Japan, Yamaguchi, Prefectural Museum of Art, Treasures of the British Museum, cat. no.233
1991 9 Mar-7 May, Japan, Osaka, National Museum of Art, Treasures of the British Museum, cat. no.233
1998 27 Jun-1 Nov, London, BM, Maori
2006 21 May-13 Aug, Norwich, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Pacific Encounters
2006-2007 28 Sept-7 Jan, London, BM, Power and Taboo
2008 16 Jun-14 Sep, Paris, Musée du quai Branly, Pacific Encounters
2010-2011 15 Oct-18 Sept The Netherlands, Leiden, National Museum of Ethnology,Maori Mana: de kracht van de Maori (the power of the Maori)
2011-2012 25 Oct- 5 Feb, Perth, Western Australian Museum, Extraordinary Stories from the British Museum
2015-2016 4 Dec - 03 Jul, National Museum of Singapore, Treasures of the World's Cultures
- Acquisition date
- 1900
- Acquisition notes
- Hooper 2006: Purchased 1900 from Arthur Passmore; formerly in 'the Bennett collection', Farringdon, London.
See also letter in AOA archives from A.D.Passmore, dated 11th November 1921. Refers to this piece sold to Museum when owner was a child.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1900,0721.1