Round Wooden Bowl
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1 Feb 1932
name: label: Donor Name
content: Miss Ella L. Dorsey
notes: label: Notes
content: COLLECTED IN HAWAII BUT OF SAMOAN OR FIJIAN STYLE (see catalog card.)
label: Notes
content: The donor, Miss Dorsey, believed that this bowl was Hawaiian because, according to her letters, it was given to her cousin Connie Harrison by Queen Lilioukalani. Connie Harrison was the daughter of Captain N.B. Harrison of the US Navy (he had served with Commander Perry during his voyage to Japan), and became the wife of Navy Captain Phillip Williams (who became the governor of the Virgin Islands). In a letter to the museum, marked January 8, 1931, Miss Dorsey recounts that "the [Harrison] family had in a high degree the affection of the old [Hawaiian] Islanders and I understand the bowl had high and secret value in their eyes." Miss Dorsey specifically requested that the bowl be registered at the Smithsonian in Connie Harrison Phillip's name; although this request was acknowledged in an internal 1932 Smithsonian memo, it has not been reflected in the records. In 1933, A.F. Judd, one of the Trustees of the Bishop Museum, wrote to the museum questioning whether the bowl was really of Hawaiian origin. Subsequent analysis of the bowl has identified it as Fijian rather than Hawaiian, although not all of the relevant Smithsonian documentation has been changed to properly reflect this conclusion.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 30 Jul 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Hawaii (Hawaiʻi), United States, Polynesia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Samoan (?)
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: 113436
label: USNM Number
content: E363218-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Bowl