Book and Media Reviews

Book and Media Reviews 7KH&RQWHPSRUDU\3DFL²F9ROXPH1XPEHU¥ E\8QLYHUVLW\RI+DZDL©L3UHVV 231 232 the contemporary pacific 26:1 (2014) Oceania at the Tropenmuseum, by lives of colonial populations. By then David van Duuren, Steven Vink, Daan the collection had been transferred to van Dartel, Hanneke Hollander, and the Colonial Institute in Amsterdam, Denise Frank. Amsterdam: kit Pub- which was renamed the Indies Institute lishers, 2011. isbn 978-9068327526; (Indische Instituut) in 1945, and then 216 pages, illustrations, photographs, the Tropical Institute (Tropeninstituut) endnotes, references, index. Cloth, in 1950, after the final “loss” (from us$45.00. a Netherlands perspective) of the Netherlands East Indies. The evolution This volume is one in a series of cata- of exhibition policies and aesthetics is logs designed to showcase and docu- traced through several chapters, from ment the genesis of the spectacular the glass cabinets and mass displays collections at the Tropenmuseum of of the Colonial Museum to the 2008 Amsterdam’s Royal Tropical Institute exhibition of Asmat bisj poles, the (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tro- museum’s largest postwar exhibi- pen). A dozen essays by curators and tion on the Pacific. Reports of visitor researchers familiar with the collection reception, not all of them admiring, provide a substantial context for the prevent this auto-history from slipping images of artifacts and original photo- into panegyric. graphs, and the result is an engaging Two chapters sketch the history historical overview of Dutch colonial of the Netherlands’ possession of its exploration and collection in Oceania. New Guinea territory and of its first Oceania, as reflected in the Tropenmu- collections from the region, housed seum collection, largely means Nether- initially in Haarlem and at the Artis lands New Guinea. There are artifacts Zoo in Amsterdam. The haphazard from Papua New Guinea, Australia, collection and documentation prac- Fiji, Tonga, and Hawai‘i, among other tices of the nineteenth century, com- locations, but most of these appear bined with the processes of attrition to have been acquired from private that inevitably accompany the transfer collectors or through the exchange of collections from one institution to of materials between museums. New another, have produced an awkward Guinea was the Netherlands’ sole gulf between many of these earliest colonial possession in the Pacific, and acquisitions and the well-documented the Tropenmuseum collection is above histories of exploration that generated all a record of colonial endeavor. them. There are intriguing accounts of The introduction provides an curatorial attempts to reconcile early instructive genealogy for the Tropen- artifacts with a fragmentary documen- museum—its predecessor, the Colo- tary record, and some of the earli- nial Museum, had been established est artifacts, deriving from the Etna in 1871 in Haarlem to educate the Expedition of 1858, have only recently Dutch public in the achievements and been identified. potential of their colonies. It focused The most substantial chapter, largely on plantation products until by former Oceania curator David the introduction in 1926 of displays van Duuren and visual collections illustrating the material culture and researcher Steven Vink, is a very book and media reviews 233 useful history of exploration, collec- presented with collections assembled tion, and photography in Netherlands by administrative officers, whose New Guinea during the twentieth enthusiasm for collecting was further century. By 1903, the coastline had galvanized by his visit. In contrast been mapped, and a series of military, with the results of passing expeditions, geographical, and private expedi- the quality of the artifacts collected tions were launched to systemati- by these long-term residents in New cally explore each of the major river Guinea was exceptional. After the systems. These expeditions and their war, an intensive round of exchanges collections are described in turn, with the British Museum and muse- from the North New Guinea Expedi- ums in Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin, tion of 1903 to the Star Mountains and Hamburg enabled curators at Expedition of 1959. It is evident each institution to fill gaps in their from the artifacts used to illustrate collections, literally trading on privi- this volume that the Tropenmuseum leged access to their respective former holds a significant proportion of these colonies. An entire chapter is devoted collections. Equally impressive are to Carel Groenevelt, commissioned by the photographs that show expedi- the Tropenmuseum to collect in New tion members, their Papuan hosts, Guinea during the 1950s; his letters and the processes of field acquisition, are revealing of this twilight moment and Vink offers a short but insightful in Dutch colonial collection, caught account of the role of photography in between the twin forces of the sup- expeditions to New Guinea. Scattered posed exhaustion of “real Papuan art” throughout the text are handy page- and the impending transfer of New length biographical sketches of some Guinea to the Republic of Indonesia. of the key contributors to the Tro- Finally, a series of bequests or penmuseum collection, most of them acquisitions from private metropolitan more famous for their role as colonial collections, including those of Henry explorers of New Guinea, including Wellcome, Georg Tillmann, and Gijs- C B H von Rosenberg, J E Teijs- bertus Oudshoorn, have furnished the mann, G A J van der Sande, J W van museum with several outstanding indi- Nouhuys, H A Lorentz, A F Herder- vidual pieces, while the comprehensive schee, H J T Bijlmer, and C C F M Le field collections of Swiss anthropolo- Roux. gist Paul Wirz and former colonial To augment these acquisitions from officer and trained anthropologist expeditions, the Colonial Museum Jan Broekhuijse reflect the collectors’ commissioned its own field collec- immersion in several Papuan commu- tors and traded with other museums. nities. A brief chapter on Father Petrus During the 1920s, J C van Eerde, the Vertenten is illustrated with three of Colonial Institute’s director of anthro- his vivid portraits, executed in oil dur- pology, initiated exchanges with the ing the 1920s, of Marind-anim men in Australian Museum to acquire arti- full regalia. facts collected by Frank Hurley and Very much a history of colonial Alan McCulloch in Papua. He trav- collection and of Dutch perspectives eled to New Guinea, where he was on Oceanic art, the volume says little 234 the contemporary pacific 26:1 (2014) of Papuans or of the kinds of relation- Sinoto argued, from the archaeo- ships currently being forged between logical evidence, that the Marque- the institutions that house these colo- sas archipelago was the first region nial collections and their source com- settled in cep. This developed into an munities. The process of repatriating “orthodox model,” holding that the human remains from the museum’s Marquesas Islands formed a second- large collection has been initiated, ary homeland for the development of but one wonders what potential there Eastern Polynesian culture and the might be for a program of reconcilia- eventual settlement of the rest of the tion and re-engagement with Papuan region. In turn, a series of archaeo- communities, mediated through this logical projects were initiated that remarkable body of material culture focused on identifying other early sites and photography. in the Marquesas, along with redat- chris ballard ing sites excavated in the 1950s that had originally been dated using less The Australian National University precise radiocarbon dating techniques *** than those now used. The result has been three decades of remarkably Vestiges d’une histoire Marquisienne: stimulating archaeological research in Contribution à l’archéologie de Ua cep, whereby old theories have been Huka, by Eric Conte and Guillaume questioned, a wealth of new data has Molle. Les Cahiers du cirap 2. 2012. been published, and a new consensus 108 pages, maps, figures, appendix, regarding the settlement of cep and its list of figures, bibliography. patterns of social transformation has emerged. Of interest is the indication Te Tahata: Etude d’une marae de that the cep region was only settled in Topoto (Nord); Archipel des Tuamotu, the last 1,000 years. This has required Polynésie française, by Eric Conte and social scientists to reformulate ideas Kenneth J Dennison. Les Cahiers du concerning the timing and pace of cirap 1. 2009. 136 pages, maps, fig- population growth, the elaboration ures, list of figures, bibliography. For of sociopolitical complexity, and the information about cirap monographs, development of regional diversity such e-mail Eric Conte ([email protected]). as that exhibited between the northern and southern groups in the Marque- Over the last three decades, the sas Islands with respect to language, islands of Central Eastern Polynesia architecture, and political systems. (cep) have been the focus of renewed Vestiges d’une histoire Marquisi- archaeological investigation. Given enne and Te Tahata exemplify the their spatial context, islands in the diversity of methodological and cep core have long been considered theoretical approaches that enliven an important gateway for the eventual cep archaeological research. Both settlement of the more remote islands works are published in the Les Cahiers of Eastern Polynesia (Easter Island, du cirap series, which serves to dis- New Zealand, and Hawai‘i). In the seminate principal archaeological 1960s, Kenneth Emory and Yoshiko data sets that are most often found in .

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