A leaf-shaped paddle from Buka
1872 British Association address: Let us see how far they serve to support our views as to variation and continuity now that they are put together. … In fig. 5 the whole body is gone, and the scroll-pattern round the eyes is modified in form. …
Blue book entry [circa 1874] - Patterns consisting of animal and vegetable forms conventionalized in ornamentation 512 - 24 Paddles. Human figure shewing the transition by which the original designs have been lost and gradually converted into a crescent form. New Ireland Part p80
1875 ‘Evolution of Culture’: 'Having noticed one or two allied varieties of design in specimens that came into my possession, I determined to collect all that I could find as they came to this country. In the course of several years I succeeded in obtaining the series represented upon Plate IV. … In the fifth figure [Fig 5] the whole body has disappeared [one side of the paddle blade 1884.61.35].
Old General Pitt Rivers Label [?before 1884]- Small printed label '18'
Old General Pitt Rivers Label [before 1884]- [Printed and stuck to paddle] Paddle New Ireland. Ornamented with a human figure. The whole body deficient. The head much conventionalized. The eyes represented by small dots and rendered subordinated to the scroll formed by the prolongation of the nose line. The sides of the face concave, and conforming to the lines of the nose. The head is surmounted by the Papuan headdress, reduced in size, the ears elongated as in the preceding figure. In this face the nose has become the prominent feature and the other features are made subordinate to it
Delivery Catalogue I entry [1884] - Paddles of the New Irelanders Paddle wood painted and carved 518 Screen 176 177
Written on object [after 1884] - New Ireland PR coll blue (518)
Accession Book IV entry [1920s] - 1884.61.1 - 65 Design - Development and Degradation of - 1884.61.29 - 41 Series of paddles with coloured designs to show possible degradation of design New Ireland (Buka type) Suboval (broken outside) leaf blade, plain handle, fiddle-shaped, carved etc, head in relief [Drawing]
Additional entry - 512 - 524 [1884.61.29 - 41] Blue Solomon Islands Buka formerly labelled New Ireland Buka paddles shewing development from man to crescent in PR coll. First reference by the General is when as Lane Fox he gave an address on Anthropology to the British Association. Transactions of the Sections. In 1872 page 168 paddles of 'the New Irelanders, one of the Papuan group of islands adjoining the one in which Bishop Patteson was lately murdered'. Bishop Patteson was murdered on Nukapu in the Santa Cruz group; the Solomon Group is next and then New Ireland. Distances are considerable. [BB]
Card Catalogue Entry [1940s] - Solomon Islands Buka (formerly labelled New Ireland) 518 Blue. Paddle; sub-oval (broken at side) leaf blade, plain handle; fiddle shaped carved and painted design in relief. No 7 of series to show possible degradations of design
