mat
- Museum number
- Oc1913,1115.312
- Description
-
Mat made of pandanus leaf. Design plaited into textile using overweave technique and highlighted with stencil design using root bark dye.
- Production date
- 19thC (before 1913)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 150.50 centimetres (including fringes)
-
Width: 53.50 centimetres (including fringes)
- Curator's comments
-
Ambae Island. Singo.
Lissant Bolton, [1996?].
-
'singo tuvegi' (sacred small mat) worn to indicate achieved status in the status alteration system ‘huqe’. Mostly worn by men. Men wear it suspended from a belt at the front, women wear it over the top of another textile, wrapped around the hips. (Jean Tarisesei Vanuatu 14.09.09)
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1913
- Acquisition notes
- Louis-Joseph Bouge (1878-1960) was a French colonial administrator and scholar-collector who served in New Caledonia in 1899, in Vanuatu from 1906 and in Tahiti from 1915. In 1913 he sold a collection of about 374 objects to the British Museum, about 250 from Melanesia, including 180 from Vanuatu and the rest from New Caledonia and Solomon Islands.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1913,1115.312