Beginning the new displays

I have had two enjoyable days working with Joan and beginning to unpack objects and put them back on display.


Here is the first part of the display (apologies for the reflections, I should have taken the photos while the doors were still open).



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Beginning to put it all back

The Cook & Scoresby wing of Whitby Museum has now been repainted and we can begin to put things back on display.  Fiona has been working really hard to re-display the collection that relates to the two Captains Scoresby, father and son.  The Scoresby collection is a mixture of objects from the regions around the Arctic where they were engaged in whaling.  Captain Scoresby Junior was also a scientist and so there are many artefacts he constructed as part of his investigations into magnetism and other experiments.  There are a few Inuit items and some very beautiful carved tusks now returned to display.

This is the view into the other end of the room and you can see we still have a lot of work to do.  The two new display cabinets will be located against the wall at the far end of the room, hopefully with the Maori Tiki figure between them.  The figure standing in the corner of the room in the above photo is of Captain Cook and usually stands on top of the hexagonal cabinet, but we took him down while we re-positioned the cabinet, so one of the next jobs is to put him back.  Today we have begun to think in more detail about where things will go and how they will be supported within the cabinets, to give visitors the best possible view.

Here are the two new cabinets under construction in Chris Hunter's workshop.  I took this photo a week ago and work is making quite rapid progress.  I love the corner detail which Chris has copied to match two of the existing cabinets.  The opportunity to work with such a skill craftsman has been brilliant.  He really listens to what is needed and comes up with ideas and solutions to help.

A bit of a mystery?

Do you know anything about this figure?  What was its function?  It has been on display in the Scoresby collection since at least 1990, but perhaps since 1823.  It is described in the catalogue as being made of skin, wetted and stretched over wood, probably North American.  It is labeled as the figure from a model kayak.

We were alerted to the figure’s strangeness by a visiting Alaskan researcher who commented that she had never seen anything like it and suggested we seek expert advice.  We have contacted various museums with Arctic collections but so far to no avail.  The Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center and the New Bedford Whaling Museum have seen nothing similar.

The figure is 40 cm (18 inches) tall and the oval base is approx 15 x 12 cm.  It feels surprisingly heavy, at around 3 to 4 lb.   Close examination shows several pieces of metal, including a nail sticking out near the top of the head.  The arms are jointed at the shoulders and may be attached with metal.  It looks as if the skin is attached with small tacks and there is no trace of stitching.  The skin over the top of the head is blackish.  The oval incision on the chest is deliberate and goes right through the skin in places. In several places there are marks of ?hessian on the skin, as if the figure was wrapped in cloth while the skin was wet.

Our figure is odd because wood is scarce in Polar regions, so a heavy wooden object is unusual and perhaps significant.  Arctic peoples moved frequently so their possessions were light and portable.  Kayaks and larger boats were made from sealskin.   The materials, workmanship and appearance are not European looking and are probably circumpolar if not Inuit.

The Museum would love to hear from you if you have any information about our strange figure, or if you have seen anything similar.

(This article was written by Fiona Barnard)

Another view

I have spent a bit more time today carefully cleaning one of the Maori model canoes. Here is a picture of another of the carved figures. In my blog post yesterday I said that I thought most of the carved figures were male but today I have changed my view and think there are a mixture of male and female figures depicted. I am still fascinated by the amount and variety of patterns carved so intricately all over the canoe. I still have a lot of cleaning to do and am working quite slowly, a small section at a time.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The model Maori canoes

The Maoris of New Zealand built impressive war canoes (waka) up to about 100 feet long and 10 feet wide. A war canoe is said to have carried a party of over 70 warriors, and sometimes over 100.  They featured decorative carving along the sides, a soaring decorative stern piece, and lashed-on gunwale strakes. Occasionally the bow and stern were carved separately and lashed onto the open ends of the main hull, but more often, bow and stern were integral with the hull. 


Whitby Museum has two amazing models of Maori War Canoes.  For a number of years they have been displayed on top of one of the cabinets so when we moved them into storage while the room is decorated I was able to get a much closer look at them and for the first time see into them.  Over the next couple of weeks I am intended to gently remove some of the accumulated dust ready for them to be re-displayed.  

This is the handle end of one of the paddles that was inside the smaller model.  This figure (female I think) is wrapped around the end of the handle and carved in quite a lot of detail.  It is tiny (I realise that I should have measured it to give some idea of the scale).  The whole length of the paddle is carved but I was fascinated by this little bit, partly because most of the other carved figures on the model are clearly male.

This is two figures sitting back to back and absolutely covered in patterns.

And this third picture is of a section of one of the cross braces (were they seats for the rowers?)  I love the patters across its surface.  This one has two male figures lying on their backs, one at each end - you can just see the feet of one of them on the left edge of the photograph.  These two figures have a bit of damage.  Each of the cross braces on this model has different patterns.

While I was trying to find a bit more information I found an interesting photo-essay by Associate Professor Tony Whincup on the following link
http://www.spasifikmag.com/freetravelarticle_tewaphotoessay/
Although he is describing a form of outrigger canoe (a completely different thing to the model war canoe I have been looking at) it was fascinating to see how the bindings are made as we have many objects with this style of binding in the museum collection.  He describes and shows the making of a traditional canoe of Kiribati, using local resources and although the canoe is very much part of the male domain he says the "women play a vital role of making sennit string. After several months of soaking the coconut husk in the lagoon, women tease the fibres from it. Rolling the fine strands on their thighs, skein after skein of string is made. This string is used in every aspect of the canoe's construction. With it the planks of the hull are stitched together, the outrigger is lashed on and all spars are held firmly in place."

The model Maori canoes

The Maoris of New Zealand built impressive war canoes (waka) up to about 100 feet long and 10 feet wide. A war canoe is said to have carried a party of over 70 warriors, and sometimes over 100. They featured decorative carving along the sides, a soaring decorative stern piece, and lashed-on gunwale strakes. Occasionally the bow and stern were carved separately and lashed onto the open ends of the main hull, but more often, bow and stern were integral with the hull.


There is an interesting photo-essay by Associate Professor Tony Whincup on the following link
http://www.spasifikmag.com/freetravelarticle_tewaphotoessay/
He describes and shows the making of a traditional canoe of Kiribati, using local resources and although the canoe is very much part of the male domain he says the "women play a vital role of making sennit string. After several months of soaking the coconut husk in the lagoon, women tease the fibres from it. Rolling the fine strands on their thighs, skein after skein of string is made. This string is used in every aspect of the canoe's construction. With it the planks of the hull are stitched together, the outrigger is lashed on and all spars are held firmly in place."


Although he is describing a form of outrigger canoe (a completely different thing to the model war canoe I have been looking at) it was fascinating to see how the bindings are made as we have many objects with this style of binding in the museum collection.

Taking objects off display

Today we have been taking some objects off display temporarily and carefully packing them, storing them while the room is repainted. One of today's objects was this beautiful Maori cloak. I have never seen it close up before as it was at the back of the cabinet. It is a fascinating thing, beautifully made and I am excited about the prospect of displaying this so that it is easier for visitors to see and appreciate it when we re-display it in February.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone