16. Report of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Department of Ethnology and Prehistory) for the year ending 31 July 1960    
Staff
Curator: T.K. Penniman, M.A., Trinity College
University Demonstrators and Lecturers in Ethnology: A.J. Butt, B.Litt., M.A., D.Phil., Lady Margaret Hall; K.OL. Burridge, M.A., Exeter College
University Demonstrator and Lecturer in Prehistory: J.S.P. Bradford, M.A., Christ Church.
Secretary to the Museum and Librarian: R.C. Gurden.
                
Last year’s report envisaged the division of Miss Blackwood’s basic background lectures and demonstrations of Lands and Peoples, a necessity made imminent by her retirement. The experiment is now a year old, and has been most successful, Dr. Audrey Butt dealing with peoples from the Americas and Africa, and Mr. K.O.L. Burridge with peoples in Asia and in Oceania. Both are former students, and have done a good deal of fieldwork or research in parts of their respective areas and have published, and have experience in teaching. The course was given on two days in each week throughout Michaelmas and Hilary Terms, and was supplemented by a practical course on Monday afternoons, taken alternately by the two lecturers. The Curator has always set great store by this course which gives an idea of what peoples there are, how and where they live, what they are like, and what they make and do, as a necessary background to all the special studies of subjects and problems of the whole course of anthropological studies. Moreover, for the English members of the course, it presents the idea that there are many people in the world who are not English, but are really very interesting in what they think and do, and see for themselves, and to collect and write about material. As for Diploma members of the course, who are yearly becoming more like an ideal assembly of the United Nations, they gain new respect for and interest in the thought, problems, and inventions of each other, and perhaps substitute some knowledge for a lot of prejudice.

Freedom from this and other teaching has set Miss Blackwood to work in redoubled earnest on improving the catalogue, which has now passed the three-quarter million mark. In using the Regional Index of African Tribes and material from them, it became apparent that there were a number of discrepancies in nomenclature. Indeed, it could hardly be otherwise in a huge collection made by so many people at different historical periods over a couple of centuries and more. She therefore began a thorough revision which has developed into a Gazetteer of African Tribes, giving the principal variants of their names, their latitude and longitude, and references to publications on them. While such a Gazetteer cannot be made exhaustive, it will, when completed, include all the tribes from which the Museum has specimens, and a number of other important tribes not yet represented in the Museum. It will be kept in one of the spare drawers of the Regional Index, and will be useful to the Museum Staff when cataloguing new accessions, and to research workers on African peoples and subjects.
    
Mr. Bradford’s prolonged absence made it necessary for the Curator to undertake a good deal of extra archaeological teaching, and to ask his colleagues, notably Professor Hawkes and Mr. Baden-Powell, to add considerably to their own work. While this cannot continue indefinitely without seriously interfering with our own duties, it was opportune at a time when we are about to revise the Diploma syllabus, as it gave the Curator a chance to work more closely with his archaeological colleagues in the University, and better to judge what portions of the syllabus must be retained, and what can now be discarded or revised, as well as new material which should be included.

In our last report we mentioned work proceeding on several publications. No. 9 of our Occasional Papers on Technology appeared on 26 July as ‘Bagpipes’ by Anthony Baines, with 140 pages of text, 78 text figures drawn by Anthony Wootton, 16 pages of half-tone plates, mainly from photographs by K.H.H. Walters, and a frontispiece, and is being sold at 21s. While our Museum publications are planned for specialists, and are printed in small editions, designed to meet demands for a good number of years ahead, we were mindful both of the fact that music has a wider popular appeal than some of our subjects, and that Mr. Baines has already reached a wide public, both by his music and by his other publications, notably in his Woodwind Instruments and their History and in his work as editor of the Galpin Society Journal, and we therefore printed an edition of 1,250 copies. At the time of writing, early in August, we have already sent out over 150 copies for sale and exchange. The book is based on the Museum’s collections of bagpipes from all parts of the world, probably the finest extant systematic collection of this most important of our folk wind instruments, and we are most fortunate in getting Mr. Baines with his well-known knowledge of the subject to prepare an interesting and authoritative book which will be a standard work for a long time to come.

This year also saw the publication in Sibrium, volume iv, of Ancient Metallurgical Furnaces in Great Britain to the End of the Roman Occupation, a long illustrated paper by the Curator, I.M. Allen, and Anthony Wootton, which is the British contribution to an International Corpus of Ancient Metallurgical Furnaces now being published by the Centro di Studi Preistorici e Archeologici of Varese. The June (1960) number of Man published ‘A Metallurgical Study of Four Irish Early Bronze Age Ribbed-halberds in the Pitt Rivers Museum’ by the Curator and I.M. Allen, a work undertaken by the Museum for the Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In both of these publications Mr. Allen was responsible for all the technical and laboratory work, Mr. Wootton for the drawing, and in the paper for Man, Mr. K.H.H. Walters for mounting the drawing of each artefact with its attendant micrographs and photographing them together to make one plate.

Among other metallurgical work undertaken by the Museum laboratory we may record two reports and a summary on two Hungarian copper axe-hammers for a paper by Mr. H.H. Coghlan in Archaeologia Austriaca, prepared by Mr. I.M. Allen, who as usual had the services of Mr. Wootton for the drawing and Mr. K.H.H. Walters for the photography. Mr. Allen has also completed 104 metallurgical and metallographic reports on our British Bronze Age artefacts, of which the micrographs and 58 of the attendant artefacts have been drawn by Mr. Wootton, towards the publication of ‘A Metallurgical and Metallographic Study of the British Bronze Age Implements in the Pitt Rivers Museum’, which is intended to be No. 10 in our Occasional Papers on Technology.

So much for publications undertaken by the Museum. Other publications by members of the Staff will be mentioned later in reporting on their individual contributions during the year.

Work on improving the exhibition and storage of the collections and generally adding to the amenities of the Museum continued steadily in all the time available from our usual teaching and routine work on preservation and restoration. One might in passing state that about half our time is spent in taking out, setting up, and clearing away material from the public galleries, the only place we have for practical teaching, and that space is required where we can leave such material for students who desire more than a passing single hour with specimens on which they will be examined. Moreover, we have to accommodate research students with specimens in the library, public galleries, or our own rooms to the detriment of other work. If a student wishes to work on music, it is a furtive business, in a shed, after hours or with ear-phones.

Among new exhibitions completed this year we may mention the large table-case of trumpets, rearranged and relabelled by Mr. Wootton, with the usual checking and rearrangement of all stored instruments. To replace the plastic stands which had bent and buckled with the heat of the Court, Mr. K.H.H. Walters made strong and attractive wire stands which hold the instruments in the desired position without obtruding themselves, and are removable if the instruments are required for playing. In the same area, Mr. Wootton also redecorated, labelled, and arranged a collection of friction drums from various parts of the world. With this, he has nearly completed the rearrangement, including the incorporation of the large Balfour gift, of our 5,000 and more musical instruments. A run of cases which required considerable sorting, exploration, and research by Mr. Wootton was that displaying dyes and pigments. Here he was helped by Mr. Allen in collecting and identifying many specimens of pigments and accessories which were scattered in many collections throughout the Museum, and storing or exhibiting these with the main pigment collection. Many specimens were transferred from the section on cosmetics, and vice versa, and where specimens were in another collection where they were relevant, but their place was not immediately obvious, cross-references were made in the catalogue. After such preliminary work Mr. Wootton was able to put on an exhibition which for several parts of the world illustrates the raw materials, preparation, and method of use, together with specimens coloured by the pigments displayed. The exhibition which took the most time and trouble was a long wall-case of magical objects, containing enough material to stock a good-sized modern museum, and generally known to us as ‘The Jungle of Superstition’. The objects varied in size from a couple of inches to seven or eight feet in length, and from feather weight to specimens requiring two men to lift. Mr. Wootton began by distributing the small amuletic material in the many drawers labelled and arranged by Dr. Butt, then found that some other material was more germane to various other exhibitions and filled gaps in them. Still other was placed in classified storage where it can be seen much more clearly than in the formerly overcrowded exhibition case. The present display gives a summary idea of magical beliefs arranged by area, the most notable show being that of shamanistic material from Northern Asia and Northwestern America. Work is proceeding on another long wall-case devoted to the treatment of the dead.

This reorganization was made possible by the work of Mr. H.F. Walters, whose large cupboards, 8 feet high by 4 feet 4 inches wide by 2 feet 6 inches deep, now number 35, together with 7 of the same width and depth but 4 feet 6 inches tall. All the larger ones are on big castors, so that they can be pushed back to allow a table and chair to be put in for anyone working on the material. The aisles between these long clean rows of cupboards in the iron house are getting very narrow, and we wonder when ingenuity can go no further in planning for the necessary space.

Before beginning work on the first of the 40-foot runs of wall-cases to be built with Miss G.A. Hansell’s bequest, we must clear and safely store the long run of arrows from all parts of the world now occupying this space. Here Mr. Allen has come to the rescue. He suggested a series of ‘umbrella-stands’, each 3 feet long, some 2 feet high and others 3 feet high. Across the top of each, and also about half-way down, and at the bottom, is a grid of 5-inch squares, so that feathered arrows will stand in classified groups on their points, and arrows with delicate points and no feathers will stand with points upward. These stands have handles at each end and run on castors, so that they can stand between the rows of cupboards, and be easily moved to allow access to each cupboard. Mr. K.H.H. Walters has already made one of these stands as a prototype, so that we can estimate how many will be needed. The new case will hold an exhibition of archery, ancient and modern, and in preparation for this Mr. Allen, who is a practising archer and contributes regularly to the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, is, with Mr. Wootton’s help, collecting together the long-separated bows, arrows, and quivers, and preparing summaries of the archery of various countries, together with note of his own experimental work on the performance of these bows. Some of our material is very rare and valuable, and of exquisite precision and handicraft, and should be more widely known and more easily accessible.

Other improvements during the year include a small kitchen under the big window in the alcove beside the Curator’s new room. This takes the place of a dirty and inefficient gas-ring, and is useful to members of the Staff who come from a distance, as well as to those who find restaurant meals expensive and unpalatable, and is appreciated on days when the weather discourages a mid-day return home or to lodgings. The Curator gave a small ‘Belling’ electric stove, and though this is well insulated, Mr. H.F. and Mr. K.H.H. Walters set it in asbestos in the middle of a large shelf of pale-grey ‘Formica’ edged with black, and put cupboards with ivory-white doors on either side, one to hold cooking, the other cleaning materials. A white porcelain sink was built round in the same colours with a bin for rubbish inside and a set of cabinet drawers beside it. The window has a Venetian blind with a rainbow spectrum of colour. The window is so shielded by a large Philadelphus that car-parkers can no longer peer in, and at the side allows views of the flower border with Cyclamen, Herpatica, Tiarella, Forsythia, Gingko, Hibiscus, Ceanothus, Eucapyptus, Metasequoia, and other trees and shrubs interspersed with mainly perennial plants which flower at different seasons. It is a powerful incentive to clean and tidy living, and adds greatly to the happiness and content of all members of the Staff.

Among accessions we mention only a few of the more important. From Africa, we are happy to record the continued generosity of Mr. Hugh Tracey with 15 more long-playing double-sided 12-inch recordings of the music of South African tribes. Here we must again stress the necessity for a couple of sound-proof recording studios, not only for students, but for our own work in re-recording our soft wax cylinders and in dealing with the increasing number of tape recordings made by our staff and students abroad and in copying valuable material kindly lent to us for our own collection. We have already bought a second tape-recorder this year in order to make such copying possible. Last year we mentioned the arrival of an important collection from the neighbourhood of Fumban in the French Cameroons, of objects made by the Bamum people, useful to us because we lack much well-documented material from French Africa. These 46 pieces, including some tape-recordings, were collected by Miss Lois Mitchison, now Mrs. Godfrey, and are all well authenticated and described in her notes which have been incorporated in the catalogue.

A most valuable addition to our American collections was made by the Oxford and Cambridge Expedition of 1957-8 to South America, through Mr. Peter Riviére. Our collection was made mainly in Brazil, with a few specimens from British Guiana, and numbers over 50 objects. On their return to England, the expedition showed the collection publicly in London and other cities, where it deservedly aroused much interest, and then most generously presented it to this Museum to add to the already considerable collections from the Guiana-Brazil-Venezuela area lately made mainly by Dr. Butt and partly by her pupils and colleagues.

Among specimens from Asia, we obtained from Mr. J. Langewis a most interesting technological collection from Japan, illustrating the Japanese technique of stencil dyeing for textiles, especially valuable as we had already received from him some of the textiles patterned by this method. Through Messrs. J. Thornton & Son, we received from Saudi Arabia a collection made by the late Mr. E.H. Brown of interesting kohl-pots and pins, decorative pipe-bowls, and an ingenious iron spring-padlock and key. As this area is usually an empty quarter in most ethnological museums, we are grateful to Mr. Thornton for helping us to acquire this material. Our old friend Miss Eyre generously continued her annual gifts from Burma, where she was long resident, this time sending an amusing lacquered box in the form of a lovable partridge, silver coins of King Thibaw, a gold ring with a pearl in elaborate setting, and ten water-colours of Burmese life, by Burmese painters, now made into an album for safe handling. Mr. T. Burton Brown collected and gave us pieces of the deep blue tiles, patterned with cut-out and inlaid turquoise-blue tile, from the Blue Mosque of A.D. 1460 at Tabriz in Persia, and examples of the grey stone bowls and other vessels made at Meshed in north-east Persia. Miss Alicia C. Percival presented us with leaves of the Pipal tree on which had been painted birds and people, and several booklets containing paintings on talc of scenes of Indian life. These were collected by her grandfather, Edward Hope Percival, who retired about 1878 from his post as Adviser in Bhaunagar State in the Bombay Presidency during the regency of the Maharajah.

Among donors of European things, we may mention our friend Miss M. Parry Okeden, who gave us examples of needle-point lace, Venetian Point, and pillow-lace from Italy and England, a shawl from Ireland of Carrickmacross type lace, and examples of embroidery from England and from India, the latter showing European influence. The Misses J. and P. Watters continued with their gifts of Victoriana, this time with a collection of mourning jewellery, just at a time when jet is becoming fashionable again for really smart evening wear. Another reminder of our spacious past was a large and heavy knife-cleaning machine suitable for a house with a large family and servant’s hall, fit to deal with entertainment on a Beetonian scale. This was given by Mrs. Wilkins and Miss Longman.

During the year Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Bowditch of Sydling St. Nicholas in Dorset called upon us to see some of the very large collection made in the Naga Hills and given to us by Professor J.H. Hutton and Mr. J.P. Mills. They gave us an English fourteenth-century bronze buckle and lead button, but their real purpose was to see the Mills collection, and they brought a letter from him. We are sorry indeed to hear of his death lately, as he was one of our oldest friends and largest and most generous donors. He was one of a famous generation of great administrators and anthropologists, liked and sincerely respected and trusted by the people they administered. As a scholar, his published work and the documentation of his collections leave nothing to be desired.
    
A handsome collection from Java and Sumatra was presented by Major F. W. Tomlinson, who obtained it while living there between 1910 and 1912. It includes Javanese textiles patterned in batik with flowers and geometrical designs, an elaborate silver box for holding areca-nuts and lime, and a set of brass models with very intricate pieced and engraved designs of the buildings comprising a rich man’s residence in the Minangkabau area of Sumatra. From Mrs. Olive Bytheway in Australia came a collection of over 60 specimens, mainly from the D’Entrecasteaux Islands, made by her father, Mr. G. H. Bardsley, while working as a missionary at Dobu in 1889 and 1890. For historical and sentimental reasons, we were glad to receive specimens from Professor Neville Coghill, collected by his uncle, Admiral Boyle T. Somerville, probably on the voyage of H.M.S. Penguin, in 1893. As a young captain on this voyage he collected and presented to the Museum a considerable amount of now rare and valuable material nearly 70 years ago, and it was exciting to hear at first hand from Professor Coghill of this now almost legendary donor. This material was from the Solomon Islands. A small collection from the Solomon Islands, made by Mr. Stanley George Masterman, Resident Commissioner at Tulagi, in 1920, was presented by his brother, Mr. P. Masterman.

In view of our forthcoming exhibition on archery, we were grateful to receive from Mr. R. A. Derrick, Curator of the Fiji Museum, one of the now rare Fijian bows with a fish arrow, and are indebted to Mr. G. M. Orr for his help in arranging this gift. To complete the bow, Mr. G. K. Roth, long a friend of the Museum, gave a facsimile of the proper bowstring made by himself from the inner bark of Hibiscus tiliaceus, which will enable Mr. Allen to test the bow’s performance. We are sorry to hear of the recent death of Mr. Roth, whose long and distinguished service to Fiji, and his unrivalled knowledge of its islands, leave a gap difficult if not impossible to fill in the ranks of able administrators who are at the same time scholarly anthropologists.

In addition to his other work, Mr. R. C. Gurden has taken over the direction of the Museum Catalogue of about 750,000 specimens in addition to the catalogue of the Library, and that of negatives made by Mr. K. H. H. Walters. He is assisted in the Museum Catalogue by Mr. Wootton, who puts on duplicate cards each month the accessions noted in the books by various members of the Staff in accordance with their special knowledge. Mr. Gurden has also nearly completed the card catalogue of the H. A. Gunther collection of Japanese netsuke, inro, &c., lent by Dr. A. E. Gunther, and is now going through the cards again with a view to revision if necessary, and at the same time making a list of carvers, and an index of names and words associated with the Gunther collection. This has been useful, as we have inquiries in person and by letter fairly often, and has saved considerable time in answering questions. As usual, he has been responsible for the general administration of the department, including the scrutiny of expenditure and advising the Curator thereon, ordering equipment, supplies and books, keeping and presenting accounts to the auditors and paying wages, supervision of the Library with about 150 regular readers and research workers, and attending to the many people who use the Museum personally and by correspondence, much of which requires identification of material and advice about it.

Much of Mr. Wootton’s considerable work in drawing for publication and in setting up exhibitions and rationalizing their attendant storage and checking with the catalogue has already been mentioned, as well as his part in assisting Mr. Gurden to keep the card catalogue up to date. He has also labelled and entered many newly acquired specimens and entered and labelled many specimens found unentered or unsuitably entered while he was working on exhibitions, and has put on cards a good many of the large Parsons collection of locks and keys. Besides assisting Mr. Gurden with correspondence, he has dealt with the dispatch of all of our Occasional Papers on Technology to various parts of the world, and has been responsible for the duplication of many bibliographies, maps, and notes for Dr. Butt, Mr. Burridge, and others. He has continued to take over Mr. Gurden’s duties when he was on holiday. In such time as he could find, he has been making an anthropological and archaeological index of the excellent articles in the Illustrated London News to keep us abreast of developments which will not reach the professional journals or other publications for a long time to come. His article on ‘A Numismatic Curiosity in the Pitt Rivers Museum’ describing the dowry head-dress collected in Bethlehem by General Sir Charles Warren about 1870 which contained coins of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Muslim and Mediaeval periods, appeared in Seaby’s Coin and Medal Bulletin in November 1959, and in the same month his account of ‘An Unpublished Medal in the Pitt Rivers Museum’, an illustrated description of the Jubilee medal of King Nikola of Montenegro given to the Museum in 1940 by Miss Mary Edith Durham, appeared in Spink’s Numismatic Circular. This brought correspondence with information from museums in Belgrade, Montenegro, Berlin, Vienna, and Leningrad, which will presently appear in a further article on the medal. In June 1960, he published ‘Brass: A Roman Coinage Metal’ in Seaby’s Coin and Medal Bulletin. Mr Allen contributed most of the technical detail to this article.

As usual, Mr. H.F. Walters continued his complete inspection and supervision of the health and safety of specimens, a task rather like painting the Forth Bridge. When the end is reached, the painters start at the beginning again. His work on improving the storage and amenities, already mentioned, was helped by the acquisition of a large band-saw which he acquired from a University Department which was getting a still bigger one. He found time to repair and restore a good number of specimens, among them pottery, which had suffered on the journey from far distant places.

Mr. K.H. Walters produced 214 negatives, 261 prints, and a number of lantern-slides, and caught up with the back-log occasioned by a long spell of hot weather during which photography was impossible in any place which we can provide. Dr. Butt’s colour-film on the Akawaio of British Guiana on which he has been working with her since 1958 is now all in one piece, and complete with titles and a map included, and Mr. Walters has had a copy made for general showing purposes. He has also done a good deal of work with her tape recordings, and has made some selections to illustrate her broadcast with the B.B.C. During this work, he consulted E.M.I. Ltd. about suitable storage. The formidable factor for us is temperature, as anything over 70 degrees accelerates the ‘print through’ effect, the tendency for a recorded passage to imprint an image of itself on adjacent layers of tape within the reel. The only place in the whole area which has had a fairly constant humidity and temperature round 65 degrees over the past two years is the basement, already crowded with the catalogue, lantern-slides, our older negatives, and cinematograph reels. Here, for the time being, the tapes will be safe, if respooled occasionally.

Now at last Mr. Walters has completed all apparatus for the recording of 800 odd soft wax cylinders on tapes, but has come up against a considerable difficulty on which he is now working. If these cylinders are to give a true rendering of the music and speech as heard at the time of recording, it is essential that they should revolve on the photograph at precisely the speed of the original recording. As the machines of the time were fitted with continuously variable speed-controlling devices with no fixed standard, it is clear that wide variation occurred at the time of making, even among cylinders of one operator, and probably wider differences among operators. It is therefore not easy to arrive at the correct speed, and pitch, of each individual cylinder. Some cylinders are prefaced with the sound of the pitch-pipe and statement of the key, some sound the pitch-pipe, but do not announce the key, and the majority offer no guide at all. Tonal languages are even more difficult than exotic music in judging whether the right effect is produced. Many of the collection are copies of the original cylinders made by another operator, apparently under the auspices of Mrs. J.G. (later Lady) Frazer, for Oxford, Cambridge, and the Royal Anthropological Institute, and some of these seem to be more troublesome than the others. Mr. Walters will presently produce a selection of some linguistic and some musical recordings on tapes, and for African records will ask the Institute of Oriental and African Studies to advise us about them. Fortunately, Mr. Walters has devised apparatus which allows frequent experiment on the soft cylinders without damage, though with the few which were played many years ago, wax-shaving has probably altered the original effect.

Much of Mr. Allen’s work has been mentioned, especially that on metallurgy and archery. Besides his metallurgical publications, he published two papers in the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, ‘Notes on Polynesian Archery’ in the 1959 number, and ‘A Note on Ancient Steel Bows’ in the 1960 number. Much of his time was taken in the preparation of specimens, drawing materials, &c, for practical classes and examinations, and in attendance at lectures for distributing duplicated material, as well as in cleaning and restoring a good many specimens, some of which required careful inspection and analytical work before treatment. He identified many specimens for visitors, and entered some specimens which required technical knowledge. A considerable time was taken in the identification of pigments for Mr. Wootton’s exhibition.

We are very happy to announce the return of Mr. R.P. Rivers from his two-year service in the army, a good part of it in Cyprus. He brought with him a first rate report both on his character as a soldier, and on his technical work, and now starts as a full Technician, and is no longer a Junior. He is taking over a good deal of the work as lanternist and projectionist at lectures, done now by Mr. K.H.H. Walters with some help from Mr. H.F. Walters, and will assist in the workshop, and help Mr. K.H.H. Walters with photographic work and also with the recording of musical and linguistic material.

During the year we gave lectures and other instruction to 16 candidates for the Diploma in Anthropology, 26 Colonial Probationers, and 58 candidates for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography, besides giving help to many research students from the University and all parts of the world.

The Curator lectured in all three terms on Origins of Civilization, and because of Mr. Bradford’s absence, gave a practical course and informal tuition weekly through the year, examined for the B. Litt and D. Phil degrees. He continued, with Miss Blackwood, to edit our series of Occasional Papers on Technology, and besides publications already noted, reviewed Lyndesay Langwill’s Index of Musical Wind-Instrument Makers for The Museums Journal and Leslie Aitchison’s two-volume History of Metals for The Antiquaries Journal. He served as usual on the Board of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, the Committee of Management of the Griffith Institute, the Board of Management for the Near Eastern Archaeological Prizes, the Committee for Archaeology, the Committee for the Fine Arts, and the Joint Advisory Science Committee of Council, and continued as Diploma Secretary for Anthropology and as Interviewer of Research Students. After 20 years service as Secretary to Heads of Science Departments, he resigned in favour of a Secretary from the Registry. Now that practically all matters relating to the Science Area come before Heads, the work takes too much time from the duties of one’s own department. As a member of the Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee and of the Ethnomusicology Committee, both of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Curator continued work on relevant problems.

Though Miss Blackwood has retired, she continues on work of benefit to the Museum. Her work on the Regional Index and as joint editor of our Museum publications has been noted. She also found time to work on the revision of the Subject Index and on the compilation of a Handlist of Subjects, a task which involved looking up material for checking, and for revising some stored material for quicker reference. She also labelled and entered a considerable number of accessions, and annotated a long series of American Indian slides made from negatives taken by herself in 1924-7. She found time to assist visiting research workers, publish reviews for Folklore, ‘Museum News’, covering many museums, in Folklore, September and December 1959 and June 1960, to serve on the Council of the Folklore Society, on the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute as elected Vice-President, and on the Committee for British Ethnology, and on the Middle and South American Research Committee of the R.A.I. She was Delegate of the Museum for the Sixth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Paris, 30 July to 7 August, and attended the 34th Congress of Americanists in July 1960.

Dr. Butt lectured on Lands and Peoples throughout the Michaelmas and Hilary Terms to students for the Diploma in Anthropology and to students for the Preliminary in the Honour School of Geography, taking the Americas in the first term and Africa in the second, and gave practical classes on these areas on alternate Mondays. She also gave six lectures on the Prescribed Area (East Africa) to Diploma students, also with practical classes. In Trinity Term she gave three lectures with practical classes to Colonial Cadets on The Material Culture of East and West Africa, and six lectures, two illustrated with her own tape recordings, to Diploma students, on Some Aspects of Amerindian Society in the Guianas. She also gave tutorials to undergraduates reading for the Preliminary in the Honour School of Geography, and examined for the B. Litt degree. Among other Museum work, she entered in the Accessions volumes 50 items from the Peter Revière collection obtained by the Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to South America in 1957-8, and re-sorted in a more rational fashion a large part of the spoons and ladles. Among outside lectures, she showed her film in British Guiana with a commentary to the Ashmolean National History Society, to the Royal Commonwealth Society, and the S.P.G. She also gave a B.B.C. Third Programme talk on ‘Spirit Raising in British Guiana’, which described the activities of the Akawaio shaman and his significance in the society, illustrated by tape-recording. This was re-broadcast. She also appeared on B.B.C. Television with the Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to South America, during which she showed material from the Museum relating to her own work. She was Secretary to the Oxford University Anthropological Society throughout the year, and Secretary of the Committee for Middle and South American Research of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Dr. Butt was Delegate of the Museum at the 34th Congress of Americanists in Vienna, held in July 1960.

Though a great deal of her time was occupied with her new lecture programme, and with her book on her recent work in South America, she found time to publish ‘The Birth of a Religion’, the origins of Hallelujah, a semi-Christian religion, among the Carib-speaking peoples of British Guiana, in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute for June 1960, and to prepare for a Dutch Journal ‘The Relationship between Symbolism and Ritual among the Akawaio’.

Mr Burridge lectured in Michaelmas and Hilary Term on Lands and Peoples, dealing with Oceania in the first term and with some Asiatic peoples in the second, and gave practical classes in all three terms. His subject in Trinity Term was Millenarial Movements, and in the same term he gave a short course to Colonial Cadets on Oceania, and S.E. Asia. He was an Examiner for the Preliminary in the Honour School of Geography, and undertook tutorials in all three terms. He gave two 12-week courses for the W.E.A.

During the year he published Mambu: a Melanesian Millenium, Methuen 1960; ‘Adoption in Tangu’, Oceania, March 1959; ‘Siblings in Tangu’, Oceania, December 1959; ‘The Slit-gong in Tangu, New Guinea’, Ethnos, 1959, 3-4; and ‘The Story of Mazienengai: A Tangu Myth Examined’, Anthropological Quarterly, October 1959.

It remains as usual to thank our oldest and most lively member, Mr. F.J. Nipress, for his cheerful work as court attendant, messenger, day-to-day shopper, and general helper in the many matters for which we all say ‘Ask Frank’.

Apart from research workers, there were 8,678 visitors to the Museum, including parties from 60 schools.

T.K. PENNIMAN