- Museum number
- Oc,LMS.98
- Description
-
Deity figure made of calophyllum wood. Anthropomorphic figure with a carved, rounded 'cap' forming top of head, distinct facial features and ears, hands to chin, protruding belly with carved navel, protruding buttocks and legs bent at knees. Feet broken.
- Production date
- 18thC(late)-19thC(early)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 11 centimetres
-
Width: 4 centimetres
-
Depth: 3.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
LMS slip comment:
'This appears to be the specimen figured by Ellis Pol. Res 2 p.180'
-
Information recorded on 1890 registration slip: 'LMS Cat 39 Tii Vahine. A Tahitian goddess. This is the god belonging to the 'house of a god' - LMS Cat p.14, No.4,q.v.'
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Hooper 2006
A small figure with hands on the chin, this may have been a whisk handle or the end of a baton similar to no. 129. Called Tii Vahine (female figure/figure of Vahine) in the British Museum documentation, it was supposedly collected by George Bennet in October 1823 at Papara, Tahiti, in association with the god house (no.134). However this figure is illustrated as no.8 in the family idols of Pomare, 'Missionary Sketches', 1818, 3, where it is called a 'family Tii', so it must have been collected by then. The association of the two objects, already doubted (Hooper, S.J.P., 2005, 'On looking at a Tahitian god house,' Journal of Museum Ethnography, 17: 95), is therefore false and Tii Vahine ('a female fiend, hideously mis-shapen', Montgomery, J., 1831, 'Journal of the voyages and travels by the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet Esq. in the South Sea Islands ... 1821-1829: 2 vols. London: F Westley and A H Davis, II: 58) must be sought elsewhere. She was possibly connected to Ti'i Tane (no.122).
-
Wood identified as Calophyllum L. by Dr Paula Rudall, Head of Micromorphology, Jodrell Laboratory, Kew Gardens, during her analysis of woods used in Hawaiian and other Polynesian figures. Publication forthcoming.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1979 – 1980 15 Feb-29 Sept, London, BM, Museum of Mankind, Captain Cook in the South Seas
2008 16 Jun-14 Sep, Paris, Musée du quai Branly, Pacific Encounters
2006 21 May-13 Aug, Norwich, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Pacific Encounters
- Condition
- Surface scratched, pitted and with some wood worm damage. Old break, repaired, to self-left leg.
- Acquisition date
- 1911
- Acquisition notes
- Hooper 2006: Ex. London Missionary Society Collection; on loan 1890, purchased 1911.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc,LMS.98
- Additional IDs
-
CDMS number: Oc1911C27.98 (old CDMS no.)
-
Miscellaneous number: Oc1890,Loan (originally loaned to BM in 1890 by LMS)
