ornament
- Museum number
- Oc1986,02.72
- Description
-
Implement (kuruai) used in dressing hair, of carved and polished turtle-shell and lime. Incised decoration filled with lime. One hole at the top drilled for suspension.
- Production date
- 1836 (before)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 20 centimetres
-
Width: 16.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- See Haddon, A C (ed) Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits Vol.4, p.31. 'I suspect that the triangular decorated turtle-shell object in the Truro Museum is a kuruai; it is described as a "neck ornament" from Murray's Island". It was collected by Lieut. J.B. Kempthorne during 1840-1841....'
Label stuck to object '1840-1'.
Information supplied by email from the Royal Cornwall Museum on 6 March 2014 notes that the correct name of collector is Lieutenant George Borlase Kempthorne. He was on the ship Tigris in search of survivors of the ship, Charles Eaton. He wrote a narrative of his voyage which notes he was on Murray Island on 28 and 29 July 1836. See G. B. Kempthorne 'Art IX - A Narrative of a voyage in search of the Crew of the Ship "Charles Eaton", performed in the year 1836', Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, Vol VIII. 1840.
The Royal Cornwall Museum retains 15 arrows from the island of Mer in the Torres Straits collected by Kempthorne.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2015-2016 27 Nov-28 Mar, Canberra, National Museum of Australia, Encounters
- Associated events
- Associated Event: Wreck of the ship, Charles Eaton in Torres Strait
- Acquisition date
- 1986
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1986,02.72
