page_title: South Sea Islands Museum
section_title: Exhibitions
hierarchical_section_title: South Sea Islands Museum / Exhibitions
caption_attribution_description: English: Octopus carving held in the South Sea Islands Museum in Cooranbong, New South Wales
context_page_description: In 1964 the South Sea Islands Museum was founded in Cooranbong, in New South Wales, Australia, to display artifacts collected by Seventh-day Adventist missionaries, who entered Australia in 1885 and expanded into New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Gilbert and Ellis Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati, Samoa, Cook Islands, Tahiti and Pitcairn Islands.
  The museum displays headhunting gear, Pacific island weapons, carvings, idols, canoes and other artifacts in an 1896 building that was originally a house.
  The records of the missionaries' work in Australia and in the South Sea Island region dating from the 1880s are held in the Adventist Heritage Centre which is located within the Library of the Avondale College of Higher Education at Cooranbong. According to the Australian Department of the Environment and Heritage, "these rich and diverse records of provenance add to the significance of items in the museum."
context_section_description: The general exhibits change regularly, and a large war canoe permanently dominates one half of the building which also includes various themed exhibitions throughout the year.
  The most visually arresting exhibit is a Solomon Islands war canoe.  Its arrival in Australia in 1968 was announced in the Sydney Morning Herald:
  Giant War Canoe Arrives
  "Once used for head-hunting raids in the Solomon Islands, this 52 foot war canoe arrived in Sydney ..., carefully "bandaged" in sacking as protection against souvenir hunters. The canoe was unloaded from the Burns Philip Freighter, Tulagi at Walsh Bay and will eventually be displayed at the Seventh Day Adventist Church's South Pacific Island Museum at Cooranbong, 80 miles north of Sydney".
caption: Octopus carving, a gift from staff at Atoiti Adventist Hospital, Solomon Islands.  Donated by Raymond Hobbs
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot G12", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2014:07:10 15:40:30", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3646", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity and Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:07:10 15:40:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:07:10 15:40:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "189/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "61/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2816", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2112", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2816", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2112", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3774", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "704000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "704000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}