Photographic negatives
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Abbott, William Louis, 1860-1936
label: Collection Creator
content: Hough, Walter, 1859-1935
label: Collection Photographer
content: Raven, Henry Cushier, 1889-1944
label: Collection Creator
content: Kloss, Charles Boden
label: Collection Creator
content: Mason, Otis Tufton, 1838-1908
setName: label: See more items in
content: William Louis Abbott collection
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.XXXX.0228, Series 9
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Five-by-seven-inch dry plate glass negatives arranged alphabetically and
numerically by negative number.

Abbott's numbering system consists of a letter (a-j including hh) or a number (1-
56) followed by a decimal point a number from 1-14 (e.g., a.1, a.2, … or 1.1, … 54.12).
(Note: not every number in these ranges is represented.)

The subject of the photographs, all apparently taken by Abbott, is generally
similar to that of the photographic prints described above. A few of the negatives were
labeled with names of the locality of people depicted. Two unnumbered negatives are of
"Javanese." Those labeled with letters ware generally of "Orang Mantong," "Orang
Utan," or "Orang Kwala" from the Malay Peninsula and area off eastern Sumatra,
especially the Rhio Archipelago, Pulo Kundur, and Pulo Sanglar. Images numbered from
1-4 show Selungs and Malays from the Malay Peninsula, including Victoria Point and
Festings Island, and a "Malay house on Lingga Id" (#2.11). Most other negatives with
numbers ranging through 24 are portraits from unspecified Malay localities.

Abbott used 25-47 to catalog his photographs from Engano. His list providing
negative numbers, name, sex, age, physical measurements, and brief description of the
person depicted is in box 16.

Nias is the subject of negatives numbered 48-56. Whereas most of the images in
this series are portraits of natives before a plain white backdrop, those of Nias tend to
show people in more natural settings with views of streets, dwellings, stone carvings, and
other features of their environment. Among the photographs of Nias are negatives
numbered a9-a12 and b.9-10 of the body of a girl who was a victim of headhunting and
the head hanging in the village. Note that the numbers duplicate some previously used,
and that the events depicted are referred to by Abbott in the Nias folder of the subject file.

Few of the negatives have been printed.