16. Report of the Curator of the Pitt Rlvers Museum (Department of Ethnology) for the year endlng 31 July 1955
STAFF
Curator: T.K. Penniman, M.A., Trinity College.
University Demonstrators and Lecturers in Ethnology: B.M. Blackwood, B.Sc., M.A., Somerville College; J.S.P. Bradford, M.A., Christ Church; W.C. Brice, M.A., Jesus College.
Secretary and Librarian: R.C. Gurden.
In September 1954 the British Association for the Advancement of Science visited Oxford and made its headquarters in the Science Area. The Museum offered hospitality to the Committee of the Section for Engineering Science besides taking part in the work of its own Section dealing with Anthropology and Archaeology. During the open evening in the Science Area and throughout the week the Museum showed special exhibitions of work done and in progress for the first seven of its Occasional Papers on Technology, dealing with analyses and techniques of metallurgy, stone-working, textiles, and ivory and animal teeth, bone and antler among other subjects, and these roused considerable interest both in the methods of work and in the publications. Mr. Brice acted as Local Secretary to our Section, and Mr. Bradford gave a lecture on 'Results of Aerial Research and Discovery at Classical Sites in Mediterranean Lands in 1953-4'.
This year saw the publication of Mr. G.E.S. Turner's Hair Embroidery in Siberia and North America as number 7 of our Occasional Papers on Technology, with 83 pages of text, 26 text-figures, 2 maps, 16 pages of half-tone plates, and a frontispiece, at 15s. The book discusses the use of moose and reindeer (including caribou) hair from the Yenisei River by way of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to northern New England, and the interactions of native and European artistic styles on the craft, analysing over twenty techniques, with criteria for the definitive identification of the various hairs and for avoiding their confusion with porcupine quills. There is also a chapter on the technique and distribution of coiled horse-hair work, and an historical reassessment of two well-known specimens from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane in the British Museum, as well as a discussion of the relation between hair and quill work. Specimens illustrated date from 1709 to 1953. Last year's report mentions the many people, both in Europe and in America, to whom we are indebted for generous assistance in the preparation of the book. The preparation of the line drawings and photographs was the work of Mr. K.H.H. Walters and Mr. I.M. Allen of our own Staff.
July of this year also saw the completion and sending to press of number 8 of our series, Mr. H.H. Coghlan's Notes on Prehistoric and Early Iron in the Old World, with about 216 pages of text, including 57 text-figures, and 16 pages of half-tone plates, to be published about September 1956 at a cost of 25s. This book deals with the craft of the blacksmith and the processes needed to make iron useful, from the earliest times to about A.D. 1000, with illustrations of tools and methods, giving an idea of what the smith knew at various periods of history. We are indebted to the British Iron and Steel Research Association for introducing us to the Director of the Department of Research and Technical Development of Messrs. Stewarts & Lloyds, Limited, who kindly allowed necessary metallographic and metallurgical analyses to be made in his Department. The analyses were done by Mr. T.H. Williams, Manager, Chemical Research, and Mr. P. Whitaker, Manager, Metallographic Research, and we are indeed grateful to them for the interest and care with which they prepared their valuable illustrated reports. The book includes an illustrated chapter on metallographic and metallurgical reports, by kindness of the Director of Research and Technical Development, and a chapter with definitions of metallographic and metallurgical terms by Mr. I.M. Allen. As in other books of our series, Mr. K.H.H. Walters and Mr. I.M. Allen did most valuable work over a long period in the preparation of the illustrations for the press. Indeed, without their work, we should find it impossible to continue our publications on anything like our present scale.
To the long list of those who supplied iron of various periods for analysis, mentioned in last year's report, we must add Professor Dr. Alfred Bühler, Director of the Museum für Völkerkunde und Schweizerisches Museum für Volkskunde in Basel, for sending us two La Tène swords from the Historical Museum, and Dr. Karl Kromer of the Prähistorische Sammlung im Naturhistorischen Museum, for sending us samples from an axe and a lance of the Hallstatt Period from Vienna, and record our gratitude for their generous assistance. We ought also to thank Mr. H. J. Case and Mr. W. Ll. Brown of the Ashmolean Museum for their help. To print an account of all those who have helped in some way or other would make a sizeable book in itself.
By now our series has become firmly established in practically every country as filling a need that no other Museum fills, and carrying on the tradition of our Founder and the life-long work of the late Professor Henry Balfour. The maintenance and continuance of this series, so completely in harmony with the organization of the Museum and its purpose, is a major part of our duty.
For some time our publications have been housed in various parts of the Museum, at some inconvenience to occupants of private rooms and to ready dispatch for exchanges and sales. This year Mr. H. F. Walters, assisted by Mr. K. H. H. Walters and Mr. R. P. Rivers, has built at the entrance of the laboratories and workshops a cupboard I I ft. high and 6 ft. wide, with plenty of shelves and doors that lock, so that the unsold numbers may be kept together, and quickly found from the labels on the front. The same members of the Staff have also added four cupboards, 8 ft. high by 4 ft. 4 in. wide by 2 ft. 6 in. deep, to the area in the iron house used for research collections, making eight new cupboards in all, plus three cupboards of the same depth and width but 4 ft. 6 in. tall. They have also constructed a rack for spears and bows 11 ft. Iong, 9 ft. 6 in. high, and 3 ft. 4 in. wide with thirty-five racks to hold the spears, each rack having a printed label. As a considerable run-back is required for pulling out the spears, cupboards filling this area are on large castors, as indeed are several others now, so that they can be very easily moved out of the way. Large free-standing cupboards are made with a partition down the middle, with doors on both sides, so that each is in effect two cupboards. With metal label-holders and printed labels, objects are very quickly found, and it will now be easy to make extensive improvements in the exhibition area. Moreover, when new building occurs, it will be easy to move everything in good order, and to avoid confusion and loss. The wooden shed moved out of the way of the new Chemistry building has been divided into two parts, one each side of the door of the iron house, and these have been freshly painted and lined with racks and shelves, one to hold pottery, and the other to hold mats and baskets. This extra 1,600 cubic feet has been a godsend in freeing space in overcrowded areas and allowing a more reasonable arrangement of specimens. A new circular saw and a mortising machine have added greatly to the speed of our work.
The effort throughout has been and is to ensure that any subject of the Museum will be in two places only, either in the exhibition area, or in one storage area. To fulfill this plan with our large collection of lamps, lighting appliances, fire-making apparatus, and accessories, Mr. H.F. Walters, Mr. K.H.H. Walters, and Mr. R.P. Rivers have added 168 square feet of shelving to the wall-case in Miss Blackwood's room, using Plimberite, which is impervious to changes of temperature. With this shelving and a 25-foot range of thirty-six drawers 2 ft. 7 in. square, we have been able to put together this very large collection in classified order, so that the whole is divided between this area and four large exhibition cases in the Court. It is well worth the trouble for one of the largest and most complete collections of its kind in the world.
Last year saw the completion of the first of our small analytical laboratories. This year Mr. I.M. Allen, with the help of Mr. H.F. Walters, designed and built a second small laboratory in the first workshop, with a fume cupboard for chemical operations involving corrosive or obnoxious chemicals. Both laboratories are now in working order, and Mr. Allen has already carried out various routine analyses needed for identification of materials and their proper treatment, several analyses of iron needed in connexion with our forthcoming publication on iron, including a report on the Eskimo knife edged with pieces of cold-forged meteoric iron which was collected by Sir John Ross in 1818, with an illustrated account of his own successful cold-forging of a billet of meteoric iron. Since the Curator has lately added considerably to his exhibition of sections and microsections of ivory and other animal teeth, bone, and antler, Mr. Allen has cut and examined microsections of some doubtful specimens in the Museum, and determined their character by comparison with the type specimens. He is continuing a systematic study of the metallography and metallurgy of copper and bronze artefacts in our collections, and with the Curator arranged a small exhibition of work in progress for the meeting of the British Association. With the assistance of Mr. R. P. Rivers, he has made about a third of our textiles mothproof.
During the past year Mr. K.H.H. Walters has photographed 186 objects, and produced 263 photographic prints and 129 lantern-slides. A great deal of this work was done for the half-tone blocks in the two books in our series already mentioned. A good deal of work was also done in collaboration with Mr. Allen on the 85 text-figures for the two publications, notably in collecting figures from various sources and grouping them as required and mounting to make line-blocks. Mr. Allen was of course responsible for all original drawings from objects, and sometimes for finding suitable objects for illustration here and elsewhere. Mr. Walters has in spare time improved his workrooms out of all knowledge, considering their old-fashioned character, including even thermostatic control which gives a constant temperature except in really hot weather when the sun on the roof takes over. He is always working to improve on past results, and reviewers generally make a point of mentioning the excellence of his illustrations. One necessity in a modern building will certainly be an air-conditioned studio to replace the present arrangements on a top floor under a low roof. As usual, he attended as lanternist at all lectures and, with Mr. Gurden, has kept a regional and subject catalogue of all his negatives.
Apart from his usual work in dealing with wages, keeping and preparing accounts for the auditors, supervising the library, cataloguing, looking after the needs of about 60 students, dealing with exchanges of periodicals and sales of our publications, and duplicating bibliographies for lectures, Mr. R.C. Gurden found time to help the Curator in listing a large number of specimens in the basement of the Examination Schools, and in making a subject and regional catalogue of them, a laborious task requiring a good deal of research and exact knowledge of the collections, which has saved the Staff from an enormous amount of loss of time and temper. He has also assisted the Curator greatly in the regional and subject grouping of the large research collections of musical instruments and shields and armour, and in the regional grouping of a large number of clubs, as well as in planning the layout of fittings to store the research collections. After consultation with the Ashmolean Museum concerning his duties and grasp of the problems of our Museum and knowledge of our collections, it was agreed that he should be promoted to be Secretary of the Pitt Rivers Museum, a position analogous to that of Secretary of the Ashmolean Museum, and Council agreed to the promotion. The Curator and Miss Blackwood will continue to work on arrears in the Subject and Regional Indexes, but Mr. Gurden will shortly become responsible for keeping these Indexes up to date, as well as for general routine administration.
To help him in the increasing clerical work of the Museum, the Curator has transferred Mr. A. Wootton from the Technical to the Clerical grade, in which kind of work he has been very successfully serving during his period of National Service in H.M. Forces in Germany. Mr. Wootton's ability in drawing, painting, modelling, and lettering will also be of great service to the Museum, and his letters from Germany show great enthusiasm for the work he will be doing when he returns in October.
During the year the Curator has added about 3.000 cards to the Subject Index, and Miss Blackwood has added about 5,600 both for the Subject Index and for the Regional Index for current accessions. Miss Blackwood has as usual been responsible for the distribution and arrangement of the cards, which now occupy 363 catalogue drawers and number well over 300,000.
Among interesting accessions during the year have been Mr. Lewis Balfour's collection of carved and painted hand-mangles dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, and ranging from Germany through Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, to Iceland. They were collected by the late Professor Henry Balfour, and once decorated the great stairway of Langley Lodge. Mr. R.P. Rivers has now hung them with a piece of old Norwegian tapestry on the wall of the Secretary's room, the room formerly occupied by Professor Balfour when Curator, and they are most beautiful and decorative. Mr. Rivers has also hung many of the pleasanter and more decorative specimens which were formerly in the drawing-room at Langley Lodge in suitable places in the Library, and made ingenious plastic stands to hold specimens in the Court.
Speaking of gifts from old friends, we must mention the Aka Diary of 1884, the Naga Hills Diary of 1876, and the Diary kept during the 1895 session of the Anglo-French Boundary Commission on the border of Siam, by Colonel (afterwards General) R.G. Woodthorpe. These came from Professor J. H. Hutton, who received them from Colonel Woodthorpe's brother Mr. J.D. Woodthorpe in 1924. These are most welcome to us, as we already have collections made by Colonel Woodthorpe, given by his brother in 1916 and 1924, and many photographs and water-colour sketches made by the Colonel, given by Dr. E.T. Wilson in 1909, 1910, and 1914, as well as some large water-colour sketches made by Colonel Woodthorpe to illustrate his tours in the Naga Hills for a lecture in Simla in 1889, given by Mr. J.P. Mills in 1922.
While on the subject of the Naga Hills, we must make an apology to Professor Hutton, Mr. Mills, and especially to the Sema Naga. In previous reports we have mentioned that Gaidiliu, the Kabui sorceress of whom we have various mementos, helped the Sema Naga in their revolt. This was quite wrong, as Professor Hutton has told me. The Sema Naga were always most loyal to us and friendly. The villains were the Zemi or Nzemi Naga (or Kachha Naga), who are very nearly akin to the Kabui, and were deeply involved in the Gaidiliu business. We are glad of the opportunity to remove this slur on the loyal Sema.
A valuable accession to our library of negatives was the gift by Messrs. Stewarts & Lloyds of the series of photomicrographs and macrographs of iron specimens made by them to illustrate Mr. Coghlan's book on iron. They form a useful skeleton history of what the blacksmith knew over a long period of history.
Once more Mrs. Elsie McDougall has remembered us, this time with a facsimile of the Dresden Codex, and with the Villacorta Edition of the three Maya Codices. The facsimile of the Dresden Codex was published in 1932 by W. Gates, a pioneer in Mayan studies, for the Maya Society, which he founded, in a limited edition issued only to members of the Society. The Dresden Codex, in the State Library at Dresden, is the earliest of the three Maya manuscripts. The Villacorta Edition of the three existing Maya codices, Dresden, Peresianus (in Paris), and Tro-Cortesianus (in Madrid), was published by Don Antonio Villacorta in Guatemala in 1933, the text from the originals being copied by hand by his son Don Carlos Villacorta. Beside each page is given Don Antonio's interpretation, about which there is considerable difference of opinion among specialists. As Mrs. McDougall has already given us the Maya Society's photographic reproduction of Codex Tro-Cortesianus, we can now give students an idea of what all three of the known Maya manuscripts look like. Together with several previous gifts of facsimiles of ancient Mexican manuscripts, she has greatly enriched our Library.
The last of the division of the Cranmore Museum collections of the late Mr. H. G. Beasley was recorded this year, and includes material from the American Indians, Netherlands New Guinea, New Guinea, the Pacific Islands, and the Eskimo. We are grateful for these gifts, collected by a most discriminating collector, and here record our thanks to Mrs. H.G. Beasley for her continued generosity.
A most useful gift was that of North American Indian trade beads from Mr. John Witthoft. These come from various sites in the United States and date from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. As the beads are securely dated to short periods by systematic excavation of Indian cemeteries and by objects associated with them, they are valuable as criteria for dating other sites. Already the collection has been helpful in the dating of similar trade beads, and thus of the sites from which they came, on the Gold Coast. For some time Mr. J. S. P. Bradford has been making a collection of trade beads, both for exhibition and for reserve research collections, and it was his known interest in the matter which attracted Mr. Witthoft's gift, and is beginning to bring us various inquiries from people who have discovered sites which have no means of dating other than by trade goods from Europe of different periods.
Among other gifts from America, we are glad to record gifts of hair embroidery from the Canadian Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company, moosehair prepared for embroidery by Mrs. Bert Edge, moccasin vamps embroidered with moosehair from Mr. Maurice E. Bastien, moosehair embroidery from Sister Beatrice Leduc, and embroidered moccasins from Sir Francis G. W. Knowles and the late Kathleen, Lady Knowles. These were collected for Mr. Turner's book on hair embroidery, and appear in his book as illustrations.
Mr. H.C. Colvin-Smith has added to our collections illustrating the making of pillow-lace a Northamptonshire lacemaker's pillow, with a pattern being worked, bobbins, parchment patterns, thread, and a lace-maker's lamp. These make a valuable research collection to add to our exhibition of Buckinghamshire lace-making and to apparatus from other parts of England. From him we also received some Araucanian silver jewellery, a welcome gift, as we had little before. Through Professor Grensted, Mrs. W. de Lacy sent a beautifully worked silver sword hilt bought in Athens, and probably from the Balkans, as the work is so like that of some of Miss M. E. Durham's beautiful collection from that area. Mr. Coghlan gave us a Danish battle-axe of A.D. 895, from the River Lea in Essex, and a full account of this will appear in his forthcoming book.
In our last report we spoke of our recent exhibitions of complete sets of tools of various crafts, and expressed the hope that these would attract others. Since we wrote, Dr. and Mrs. D. G. Jenkins obtained for the Museum a complete set of ironworker's tools from a craftsman in Neyyoor, Travancore, where they are stationed. Mrs. Jenkins was formerly Miss M. G. Hardy, and a pupil of ours in Ethnology, which she studied with us as a special subject in the Honour School of Geography. His Highness the Maharaja of Dhrangadhra, one of our pupils who this year won distinction in the Diploma for Anthropology, continued his gifts to us with a set of casts of ancient seals with pictographic writing from Mohenjo-daro. Mr. A. H. Hill of the Raffles Museum at Singapore, who worked for some time this vear on our Malayan and Indonesian collection, presented us with a Malayan bobbin, Major E. B. Stewart gave us a Japanese sword which he had captured in war, because it had brought him ill luck, and we took it because we have amulets against any kind of ill luck in any part of the world whatever one's religion, and our old friend Mrs. Fitz Adam-Ormiston, who has given us so much in the past from Tibet and surrounding areas, brought us a Tibetan charm-case. A most welcome loan was brought by Miss Blackwood from the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, with permission for any analyses we might care to make. These two bronze axe-heads from NorthernViet-Nam date from A.D. 40-50, and are rare and unusual. Mr. Allen has prepared a metallographic and metallurgical analysis, which will be placed on exhibition, and in due course published.
Mr. A.M. Abou-Zeid, one of our past students for the Diploma, gave us a well-documented collection of Egyptian basket-work, the late Miss Marion R.P. Irvine presented more of her collection made in Portuguese East Africa, Mrs. A.E.F. Selfe sent more of the delightful Akamba carvings, this time a bull in wood and a fish in shell, and Mrs. Knowles, a former pupil for the Diploma, continued her gifts from the Kisii area of Kenya. The Department of Entomology transferred an amusing Ashanti gold-weight in the form of a palm-weevil, once the gift of our old friend and considerable donor, Captain R.P. Wild.
From Mr. B.C. Crawfurd, who collects unusual and rare objects, we purchased a Tikopian head-ring of human hair, and some Santa Cruz hair ornaments made from the Scarlet Honeyeater (Myzomela cardinalis). From this bird come the feathers for their well-known currency rolls. The Gloucester City Museum gave us a collection from the Gobedara District in New Guinea, an area from which we have little.
While sorting the collections, the Curator noted two Lister carbolic sprays of about 1873, one of which was given by Lister himself to Dr. H.P Symonds of Beaumont Street, Oxford, and transferred these to the Museum of the History of Science in the Old Ashmolean Building in Broad Street. The Department of Geology and Mineralogy transferred to us on loan various minerals of use to us in our work, and arranged for Mr. J. Fairley to allow us to have a Burmese tin ingot that he had given to that collection.
Apart from various activities noted above, and work on editing Numbers 7 and 8 of our Occasional Papers on Technology, the Curator lectured in all three terms on Origins of Civilization, took part in practical teaching, including a demonstration for candidates for the Diploma of the Museums Association, and continued to serve as Diploma Secretary for Anthropology, Interviewer of Research Students, and Secretary to Heads of Science Departments. It has been a year of putting everything to go and seeing that nothing comes to an end.
Miss Blackwood's considerable work on the Regional and Subject Indexes has been mentioned. Throughout the year she lectured twice a week, and gave a long practical class once weekly for the students for the Diploma in Anthropology, and two shorter practical classes twice weekly for students working for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography. In the former she was assisted by Mr. Bradford and Mr. Brice, and in the latter by Mr. Brice. During Michaelmas and Hilary Terms, her general title was Lands and Peoples, the first term dealing with Hunters and Herders, and the second with Cultivators. These lectures were given both to Diploma and to Geography students. In Trinity Term, for Diploma students she gave The Higher Civilizations of Pre-Conquest America once weekly. She also gave four lectures and demonstrations on Some Arts and Industries of Malaya to Overseas Cadets going to Malaya, and three lectures and demonstrations on Some Arts and Industries of British Africa to Overseas Cadets going to Africa.
Besides answering a large number of inquiries both verbally and by letter, many of which involved a considerable amount of work, and giving a great many demonstrations in the Museum as required to students and research workers, she gave a demonstration on Ethnological Techniques including pottery, tandu, basketry, and textiles to the students for the Diploma of the Museums Association, a general talk on the Museum to members of the Ashmolean Natural History Society, entered and labelled a large number of accessions, rearranged the research collections of the section on Smoking, Snuff-taking, Betel chewing, &c., served as Moderator for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography, and visited the Musée de l'Homme in Paris to select specimens from Indo-China in return for those from Assam which we have already sent.
For the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute she prepared a paper on 'Artificial Cranial Deformation in New Britain' on material collected by herself and now in the Museum. Part I on 'The Living' is by Miss Blackwood, and Part II on 'The Skull' is by Mrs. P.M. Danby of the Department of Human Anatomy. Miss Blackwood also reviewed R.F. Dickey's New Mexico Village Arts and The Land Dyaks of Sarawak by W.R. Geddes, both for Folk-Lore, and assisted in the editing of our Occasional Papers on Technology, Numbers 7 and 8.
Among outside activities she served on the Council of the Folk-Lore Society and on the Council for the Promotion of Field Studies, and as one of the two National Secretaries for the United Kingdom attended a meeting of the Permanent Council of the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Paris to discuss arrangements for the 5th Congress to be held in Philadelphia in September 1956.
Mr. Bradford lectured once weekly in all three terms, his Michaelmas lectures being on Nomad Empires of Asia, the Hilary lectures on The First Farmers in Europe, and the Trinity lectures on Peoples and Crafts in Britain in the First Millennium B.C. He also assisted in the weekly practical class in Ethnology, and gave a weekly practical class in Archaeology.
On the general subject of 'Results of Aerial Research and Discovery at Classical Sites in Mediterranean Lands, 1953-4' he gave lectures with varying emphasis according to the audience to the Second International Congress of Classical Studies at Copenhagen in August 1954, and to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford in September 1954. The texts of both lectures and illustrations are to be published in the Proceedings of both Meetings. He also dealt with the same subject in a lecture to the Classical Association at the University College of the South-West, Exeter, in May 1955. For the visits of the Executive Committee of the International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences in July 1955, and of the Joint Meeting of the Classical Societies in August 1955, he prepared exhibitions of aerial photographic discoveries in Mediterranean lands, and for the former meeting acted as guide in an archaeological flight arranged by Professor Hawkes and sponsored by the British Academy. Eight members of the Committee were in the aircraft (a Dove), which in the course of a two-hour flight in Wessex enabled the visiting prehistorians to see a large number of the finest British prehistoric sites and earthworks.
Apart from Museum activities already mentioned, he arranged donations from overseas collectors, and continued the cataloguing of the air photograph collections. He wrote reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, Antiquity, Oriental Art, Man, and The Museums Journal, examined in the Preliminary for the Honour School of Geography and the Diploma in Anthropology, and gave tutorials to twenty-nine pupils during the year. He also found time to give a class of practical instruction on the use of air photographs in archaeology to students for the Diploma of the Museums Association and a demonstration of the archaeological collections in the Ashmolean Museum during the visit of the Camerton Club to Oxford. He was fortunate to be able to arrange for a lecture by Dr. Groslier of the École Française d'Extrême Orient on his latest discoveries and excavations in Indo-China.
The Craven Committee awarded him a grant to help towards his expenses in ground-checking archaeological discoveries from the air which he had lately made of ancient field systems on the slopes of Mount Hymettos near Athens and the topographical remains with which to reconstruct the street plan of the ancient city of Rhodes.
This year saw the completion of Mr. Bradford's book on Ancient Landscapes, a work of about 150,000 words, illustrated by 70 pages of plates. It is to be published by G. Bell & Sons.
It is especially pleasant to record that on Mr. Bradford's initiative an inter-faculty committee has been formed to consider what can be done permanently to commemorate the life and work of our old friend the late Sir John Myres. A committee elected from the Sub-Faculty of Ancient History, the Board of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, and from the Board of the Faculty of Oriental Studies has already met and agreed on the value of the proposal and on preliminary action.
In Michaelmas Term Mr. Brice lectured on Village Life in Ancient Anatolia, and assisted in practical classes. He then left us for a post in the University of Manchester where he will be free to work entirely on Near Eastern studies. During Hilary Term he came to Oxford one day a week to help with tutorial work and the supervision of research students.
Dr. Audrey Joan Butt has joined the Staff as University Demonstrator and Lecturer in Ethnology from I October 1955. She took our Diploma with distinction in I949, the B.Litt. degree in I950, and the D.Phil. in 1955 She has done distinguished field work in British Guiana, and given a valuable collection to the Museum. During the past year she has held a teaching appointment in Spain, mainly to learn the Spanish language as a preparation for further research in Americanist studies.
As usual, the entire Technical Staff assisted in looking out and setting up materials for lectures and practical classes. Mr. F.J. Nipress, the oldest and liveliest member of our Staff, continued to look after all of our wants in his usual cheerful and unruffled manner.
Readers in the Balfour Library will be glad to know that windows have been cut in the south-east door of the University Museum, so that they can enter our Library by daylight, rather than risk their necks on ill-lighted or dark stone steps, or come in crowds through the Secretary's room.
During the year there were over 9,000 visitors to the Museum, apart from research students, including 1473 children from 76 schools.
T.K. PENNIMAN
