Headdress
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1858
label: Collection Date
content: 1840
name: label: Collector
content: Lt. Charles Wilkes
label: Donor Name
content: United States Exploring Expedition
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "THIS ITEM WAS FOUND IN THE COLLECTIONS WITH THE CORNER OF A WILKES EXPL. EXP. TAG BUT NO PART WITH ANY DATA ON IT". FOR ADDITIONAL DATA FROM CARD, SEE ORIGINAL CARD. IDENTIFIED BY DR. JANE WALSH, DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY AS PEALE # 2483 (THUS MAKING THIS A WILKES/U.S. EXPLORING EXPEDITION PIECE), "A UNIQUE FRAGILE HEADDRESS...PRESENTED TO THE EXPEDITION BY THE KING OF SOMO SOMO. ITS CATALOG NUMBER HAD BEEN LOST, AND AFTER 140 YEARS IT WAS IN EXTREMELY BAD CONDITION AND UNRECOGNIZABLE AS A HEADDRESS. IT WAS IDENTIFIED AND ENTIRELY RECONSTRUCTED BY COMPARISON WITH THE WOODCUT AND THE DESCRIPTION FROM THE 'NARRATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION' BY CHARLES WILKES" [SEE NARRATIVE VOL. III, PP. 169-170]. DR. ADRIENNE KAEPPLER, "ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE U.S. EXPLORING EXPEDITION" IN MAGNIFICENT VOYAGERS, THE U.S. EXPLORING EXPEDITION, 1838-1842, HERMAN J. VIOLA AND CAROLYN MARGOLIS, EDITORS, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C., 1985. See also Kaeppler, Adrienne. 1989. Museums of the World: Stages for the Study of Ethnohistory" in Susan M. Pearce, "Museum Studies in Material Culture. London: Leicester University Press. p 90-91. Narrative, Vol 3, p170 (Sherman edition) has an illustration of this headdress. Smithsonian Instutution Archives, RU 007186, box 3 folder 5, has a letter by an expedition scientist to Wilkes, describing this as a gift to the Expedition from King Somo Somo.
label: Notes
content: What seems to be this artifact is partially visible in the right foreground in a Smithsonian Institution Archives photo dating to the early 1880's: Negative number 2603 or MNH-2603, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 342, Box 70, Folder 3. Photo shows artifacts in a repairing room/storage area in the third floor of one of the pavilions of the United States National Museum building, now the Arts and Industries Building. https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=SIA-MNH-2603 .
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Jul 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Somosomo, Taveuni Island, Fiji, Melanesia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Fijian
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 66A00050
label: USNM Number
content: ET316-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Headdress
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: ca. 71 cm
label: Width - Object
content: ca. 30 cm