photographic print(black and white)
- Museum number
- Oc,B128.50
- Description
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Photograph (black and white); a Tūhoe man, Mika Te Tawhao, sitting outdoors demonstrating/playing whai (string figures); he is performing te tutira o maui, an intricate pattern requiring two persons for its completion; a woman holds one end of the string; his daughter and three children look on; he is chanting while performing; he wears a kahu kiwi (kiwi feather cloak), a cloth shirt, a woven belt and trousers; Whakatane, New Zealand.
Gelatin silver print
- Production date
- 1939
- Dimensions
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Height: 7.90 centimetres (image)
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Height: 10.20 millimetres (mount)
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Width: 12 centimetres (image)
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Width: 15.20 centimetres (mount)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Related images: Oc,B127 and Oc,B128 are one collection of images from New Zealand, by Werner Kissling taken in the late 1930's. Some of the same Kissling images can be found in the photographic collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Images Oc,B128.36 through 53 all depict the same topic and people; some of these images are to be found in the Dumfries Museum & Camera Obscura collection and in the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology collection. Oc,G.T.2687 is a lantern slide of this image. Oc,F.N.3967 is the negative for this image.
Description: this image was accompanied by an index card typed by Werner Kissling, which reads:
"Pol. N.Z.
Maori String Figures.
See
TE TUTIRA O MAUI: Mika is helped by his children who are eager to watch the changing shapes at intermediate stages of the play of one of their favorites. Twice Mika's chant that accompanied the movements of the two players' hands, stopped, perhaps owing to an error in manipulation. As the players proceeded, the chanting was resumed, Mika's comptetence, however not extending to his music*.
*It has not been possible to establish the meaning of the song.
W. Kissling (1939)."
- Location
- Not on display
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc,B128.50
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: 100 (Kissling number)
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Miscellaneous number: F.N. 3967