Collecting in the South Sea

This book is a study of 'collecting' undertaken by Joseph Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux and his shipmates in Tasmania, the western Pacific Islands, and Indonesia. In 1791-1794 Bruni d'Entrecasteaux led a French naval expedition in search of the lost vessels of La Pérouse which had last been seen by Europeans at Botany Bay in March 1788. After Bruni d'Entrecasteaux died near the end of the voyage and the expedition collapsed in political disarray in Java, its collections and records were subsequently scattered or lost.The book's core is a richly illustrated examination, analysis, and catalogue of a large array of ethnographic objects collected during the voyage, later dispersed, and recently identified in museums in France, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. The focus on artefacts is informed by a broad conception of collecting as grounded in encounters or exchanges with Indigenous protagonists and also as materialized in other genres-written accounts, vocabularies, and visual representations (drawings, engravings, and maps).Historically, the book outlines the antecedents, occurrences, and aftermath of the voyage, including its location within the classic era of European scientific voyaging (1766-1840) and within contemporary colonial networks. Particular chapters trace the ambiguous histories of the extant collections. Ethnographically, contributors are alert to local settings, relationships, practices, and values; to Indigenous uses and significance of objects; to the reciprocal, dialogic nature of collecting; to local agency or innovation in exchanges; and to present implications of objects and their histories, especially for modern scholars and artists, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.Contents:AbbreviationsPreface and AcknowledgementsPART I: PROLOGUE1 History - Contexts, Voyage, People, Collections - Bronwen DouglasFeature: The 'Effets' (effects) plates - Bronwen Douglas2 Ethnohistory - Collecting and Representing - Bronwen DouglasPART II: ARTEFACT COLLECTIONS3 Object Trajectories, Webs of Relationships - Fanny Wonu Veys4 Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris - Bronwen DouglasFeature: bwar - Kanak hache-ostensoir, ceremonial axe - Bronwen DouglasFeature: sisi fale - Tongan coconut fibre waist garment - Billie Lythberg and Melenaite Taumoefolau5 Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dunkerque - Claude Steen-Guélen and Hélène GuiotFeature: kie - Tongan small fine mat - Hélène Guiot6 Universitetsmuseet, Bergen - Knut RioFeature: Encountering Māori and their artefacts - Billie Lythberg and Mānuka HēnareFeature Archery equipment - Andy Mills7 Kulturhistorisk Museum, University of Oslo - Arne Aleksej Perminow8 Museum Volkenkunde - Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Leiden - Fanny Wonu VeysFeature Tongan ships carving Fanny Wonu VeysFeature helu tu'u - Tongan comb and hair dressing - Billie Lythberg and Melenaite Taumoefolau9 Tropenmuseum - Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Leiden - Tristan Mostert10 Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg - Caroline van Santen11 Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA - Fanny Wonu VeysFeature kali - Tongan headrests - Fanny Wonu Veys_12 Musée cantonal d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, Lausanne - Claire Brizon, Claude Leuba, and Lionel Pernet with Fanny Wonu Veys and Bronwen DouglasFeature Absent objects, Muséum d'Histoire naturelle du Havre - Thierry VincentPART III: OTHER COLLECTIONS13 Drawings and Engravings - Bronwen DouglasFeature tayenebe, exchange - Reviving Aboriginal fibre work in Tasmania - Julie GoughFeature kupesi - Tongan design structure and Piron's experiment - Billie Lythberg and Semisi Fetokai Potauaine14 Tongan Wordlists - Paul Geraghty15 Tongan Musical Instruments - Fanny Wonu Veys, Billie Lythberg, and Rachel Hand with Tavake-fai-'ana Semisi Fetokai PotauainePART IV: RE-INTERPRETATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS16 Cultural Currents - Tongan and Fijian Sculpture - Andy Mills17 Tongans in 1793 Phyllis Herda and Bronwen Douglas18 Translation and Transformation - Piron's Drawings - Nicola DicksonFeature Lisa Reihana's Emissaries - Billie LythbergPART V: EPILOGUE19 Reflections Nicholas ThomasPART VI: CATALOGUEAppendix 1 Catalogue of the objects - Fanny Wonu Veys, Billie Lythberg, and Andy MillsAppendix 2 List of Objects by Institution - Fanny Wonu Veys and Billie LythbergAppendix 3 List of Objects by Provenance - Fanny Wonu Veys and Bronwen DouglasContributorsFiguresReferencesIndex