Notes on a Marquesan Tiki-Headed Ke`a Tuki Popoi (Breadfruit Pounder) in the Founding Collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum

Authors

  • Jeremy Coote Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15286/jps.124.3.303-315

Keywords:

Marquesas Islands, Polynesian food pounders, ethnographic collections, museums

Abstract

Until now a tiki-headed ke`a tuki popoi (Marquesan breadfruit pounder) in the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has been thought to be the earliest attested example to have been collected, in 1874. It is shown that a tiki-headed ke`a tuki popoi in the founding collection of the University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum was exhibited in London on 25 January 1870, making it the earliest attested example to have been collected. Some of the implications of this finding for the art history of such pounders are discussed.

Author Biography

Jeremy Coote, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Jeremy Coote is Curator and Joint Head of Collections at the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum where he has worked since 1994. Since joining the Museum his research has focused on the history of its early collections, particularly those from Africa and the Pacific.

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Published

2015-10-09

Issue

Vol. 124 No. 3 (2015)

Section

Shorter Communications

License

Copyright © 2022 by the Polynesian Society (Inc.)

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Dr Marcia Leenen-Young, Editor
The Polynesian Society
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New Zealand

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