head-ornament
- Museum number
- Oc1939,08.14
- Description
-
Head ornament with a bundle of much worn feathers secured to the end of a pointed stick. The feathers are tied in the middle and covered with gum.
- Production date
- 1900-1912 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 11.60 centimetres
-
Width: 4.70 centimetres
-
Depth: 1.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Register 1939
Collected by H P Rogers, ornithologist, before 1914, in Australia.
Melville Island, Northern Territory.
-
Artist Bede Tungatalum who visited the British Museum collections on 26 October 2015 advised that this would have had white or black cockatoo feathers attached to the wax, and be worn by senior people in ceremony.
-
Rogers visited Melville Island August 1911 - September 1912 while collecting for ornithologist G. Mathews.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1939
- Acquisition notes
- Register reads, for collection Oc1939,08: Collected by H P Rogers, ornithologist, before 1914, in Australia. However inspection of the original correspondence from Mathews reveals that this should be J P Rogers, who was Mathews' ornithological collector in Northern Australia.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1939,08.14