16. Report of the Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Department of Ethnology and Prehistory) for the year ending 31 July 1961

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.O.L. Burridge, M.A., Exeter College.
University Demonstrator and Lecturer in Prehistory: Dennis Britton, M.A., Queens College
Administrative Secretary of the Museum and Librarian: H.P.G. Unsworth

This year the Museum and Department suffered the severest blow within our memory in the death by lung cancer of Ronald Gurden, our Administrative Secretary and Librarian. He was born on 8 July 1917, and died on 8 July 1961. The Curator had known him for exactly thirty years. from the time when as a young library clerk in the Bodleian, especially in the Radcliffe Science Library, he helped in evenings and on free afternoons, first in the library of the Department of Social Anthropology, and then in the Museum library. His sound training in the Radcliffe, one which induced him to learn to read a number of languages, was a great help when he joined the Museum, as one of his first duties was to arrange and catalogue the libraries bequeathed or otherwise given to the Museum by Balfour, Tylor, Evans, Marett, Myres, Buxton, Wild, and Beasley, to see to their increase, and to move them into their new home. When he joined the Museum after the war, he retained his friendship with Bodley, and, especially in the Science Library, enjoyed the privileges and trust of a member of their own staff.

As a boy he was at Cowley village school, gaining a good foundation on which he never ceased to build. He sang in the Cowley church choir under the direction of the Rev. G. Moore, and his interest in music lasted all his life. His ear for pitch was of great use in dealing with some of our instruments and in recording some of our older soft wax cylinders. There were few of our exotic wind instruments from which he could not coax some music, and his help was considerable in reclassifying several which had been wrongly named and described. He was fascinated by the workshop of his brother Harold, a carpenter, and his advice on fine wood and machines in our Museum workshop was a material help in its development.

He loved cricket, and there was sunlight in his cricket, from the time when as a schoolboy he won his first medal for the Telegraph Cup team, and he played up to the time of his last illness. He was an excellent all-rounder, but will be most remembered for his batting. It was always a delight to watch him at the wicket, and he rarely failed to entertain with an innings full of elegant and handsome strokes. Both the Combe and Long Hanborough clubs describe him as a fine cricketer and an even better sportsman, and one it was a privilege to call a friend.

We have the same testimony from his regiment, for which he also played. Colonel A. Clerke-Brown speaks of his sportsmanship, loyalty, sound education, many-sided ability, and charm, and gives details of his army career. From 15 February 1940 to 17 May 1946 he served in the 52nd Light Infantry (Oxford and Bucks.) and in the 43rd; then in the Reserve until 30 June 1959, and was awarded the 1939-45 Star, France and Germany Star, Defence Medal, and War Medal 1939-45. From the autumn of 1941 onwards, the Oxford and Bucks. were in the 6th Airborne Division as glider troops. With them,he was among the first British troops to land in Normandy on D-Day. In December 1944 his battalion was rushed out to NW. Europe to help the Allies to stop the German offensive in the Ardennes, and again with the Airborne troops he landed across the Rhine in March 1945.

During his war service the 52nd was for a time at Ross-on-Wye, and here in 1941 he married Susan Mary Llewellyn, a union which brought great and lasting happiness. We grieve for her and for their two sons, Michael Llewellyn, aged seventeen, and Christopher Ronald, aged two, as well as for the Oxford family in which he was born and bred, always dear and loyal to him, as he was to them.

On his return from army service he joined the staff of the Pitt Rivers Museum as Secretary and Librarian, and rapidly made himself familiar with our many and varied activities, both in the teaching and research, and in the museum and library aspects. He became thoroughly capable in the management of our large card-index, to which he contributed, among other parts, that of the Gunther collection of Japanese Netsuke and that of the material in the Examination Schools, and since Miss Blackwood’s retirement was in full charge. This brought him into contact with many people in all parts of the world, who always found that he could help them or find the right person to help them.

His work in administration of the department was of such quality that the University promoted him to the rank of Administrative Officer, a rank to which few attain, and in which the qualities required can be deeply appreciated, but not easily explained. Rather than circumscribe his duties, he extended them, performing them with pleasure and giving pleasure to others in their performance. It was against his nature to put anything in the shop window, but his qualities and abilities were of the best, given unobtrusively and with complete loyalty to his colleagues, to the Museum, and to the University he was happy to serve.

Elsewhere in this report, and in previous reports, we have described his work. Up to the last fortnight of his illness he continued to advise and help in major matters. We all had complete trust in him, both in routine and in crisis, and his qualities (shown through his whole life and through his last painful illness) of courage, faithfulness, ability, kindness, and a nature which promoted happiness in daily work and relations among ourselves and all who came here, are of lasting value, setting a standard men treasure, not only for today or yesterday but for all time.

Mr. Dennis Britton, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and of Queen’s College, Oxford, joined our staff in April of this year in succession to Mr. J.S.P. Bradford. He did the Archaeological and Anthropological Tripos at Cambridge, and so is eminently suited to our Department of Ethnology and Prehistory, which treats these two as a continuous process, the present and past of the same subject. While working with Professor Hawkes he became especially interested in the techniques of basic arts and industries, and has already published or has in press useful articles on ancient metallurgy, working in conjunction with our own small laboratories and with the University Laboratory of Archaeology and the History of Art. He is an especially valuable recruit now that the Curator’s time is running out, because with him and Mr. Allen we have both an academic and a technical post which ensure that a subject for which this Museum has always been well known will continue with the younger generation, and that one of the most important contributions which this Museum makes, and exemplifies in its Occasional Papers on Technology, has received new life and vigour. Mr. Britton will work mainly on periods from the Neolithic to Iron Ages, and Mr. D.F.W. Baden-Powell, lately appointed as University Lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology, a most welcome appointment, will teach and guide research in periods from the Palaeolithic to Mesolithic. Thus we now are up to full strength in Archaeology, as well as in Ethnology, where Dr. Butt and Dr. Burridge divide the field of work.

‘Bagpipes’, by Anthony Baines, No. 9 of our Occasional Papers on Technology, has taken its place as a standard work, judging by the reviews of musicians and scholars who are fitted to assess the book, and has, apart from exchange and review copies, sold 253 copies in the past year after the initial call for it last year. Coghlan’s ‘Notes on the Prehistoric Metallurgy of Copper and Bronze of the Old World’, No. 4 of our series, has gone out of print, and is now reprinting to satisfy demands which are still regular, until we can find time and money for a new edition. It is still standard, but there is later material which could be added. Some of this will appear in No. 10 now well advanced, on ‘The Metallurgical and Metallographic Study of British Bronze Age Implements in the Pitt Rivers Museum’, being prepared by the Curator and Mr. I.M. Allen. About 150 implements will be shown, together with the attendant micrographs and explanations. The whole series now has a steady sale throughout the world, based as it is on the principle Nullius in verba, with material so presented that any capable person can repeat our work and judge for himself.

So much for publications issued by the Museum. Other publications by members of the staff are mentioned in accounts of their work during the year.

A main effort this year has been the accommodation of the first 40-foot run of wall-cases to be built with the money bequeathed by the late Miss G.A. Hansell. Before we could begin it was necessary to empty and store the contents and remove several free-standing cases, then to devise special suitable classified storage for a large number of arrows. Last year Mr. Allen’s prototype ‘umbrella-stand’ was mentioned. Mr. H.F. Walters, Mr. K.H.H. Walter’s and Mr. R.P. Rivers made three of these, each 3 feet long and 2 feet high, and one 3 feet high, all with a grid of 5-inch squares at the top, one half-way down, and one at the bottom, lined with foam-rubber. Feathered arrows stand on their points so as not to damage the flights, and others stand with points upwards. The stands have castors and handles at each end, so that they can be moved out of the way when one needs to open the cupboards. The new case is well on the way to completion, and it is a pleasure to break away from the general black and see so long a run of lovely pinkish-red mahogany with clear polish, and to know that we shall in the course of another year be able to have another 40-foot run of the same kind, to encourage the Curator’s successor to de-black or scrap other cases, and show the noble nature of fine wood. Mr. Allen, a practising archer and contributor to the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, is well away with the preparation of an exhibition of archery, ancient and modern, for the new case.

Some long time was taken in sorting material in Mr. Bradford’s room, separating the personal effects from air photographs, and dividing the results of the Apulian expeditions into periods and preparing them for removal by the Apulia Committee of the Society of Antiquaries. The room had then to be redecorated. This was done by Mr. H.F. and Mr. K.H.H. Walters and Mr. Rivers, who took the opportunity to add one long wall of shelving to relieve congestion in the Library, particularly of periodicals. At the same time, they took the opportunity to improve the amenities and convenience of Dr. Butt’s room, and are at present engaged on improvements to the Library and to the Secretary’s room. Their ingenuity never seems to fail. One of the useful improvements is in the Catalogue Room. After long experiment in many places, Mr. K.H. Walters found that this basement room was the only one in which the temperature remained suitable over three years for our growing collection of tape recordings. Accordingly, he is now rearranging the large card index of the Museum collections in a more convenient manner, and in the space thus saved Mr. Rivers is building and fitting a special cupboard which will hold the recordings in order and safety for some time to come, while Dr. Butt is preparing a catalogue for ready reference. Mr. Wootton has completed the rearrangement of a long wall-case showing treatment of the dead, mainly in ancient Egypt and in Peru, and has prepared new labels. This was a considerable task with such large and delicate material, and more would have been done had not Mr. Gurden’s illness and death required Mr. Wootton to devote a good part of the year to acting as Secretary, Librarian, and ‘Public Relations Officer’. Mr. H.F. Walters with Mr. Rivers made much of the rearrangement possible by bringing the number of large standard cupboards on castors up to 38 this year, and by moving out Mr. Bradford’s material and making some consequential changes they found room for two more of the standard storage units, which will be done by the time this report appears.

During the year Mr. Levy and Mrs. Stewart recorded a number of our musical boxes with a view to a possible broadcast by the B.B.C., a somewhat arduous task which involved stopping telephones, clocks, visitors, readers, and general isolation of the Museum and Department from the world, with the Curator holding his breath after turning the machines on and off, two thing which must be done almost at the same time. When it came to recording the 1552 Jadra virginal and the 1770 Pohlmann piana, the Goble family of Headington nobly came to the rescue and removed them on cushions to their Headington studio where they could get used to their delightful eccentricities and play them in the peace and quiet which we could not afford. As Mr. Robert Goble was the man who restored the virginal to perfection, and his friend Mr. Hugh Gough perfected the playing of the Pohlmann, this was a safe and admirable solution. Fortunately for us, the 1803 Broadwood has a 1784 action, and as this comes well within Mr. Gough’s period of interest, he has made this piano take its place among the major joys of the Museum.
    
Before he fell ill Mr. Gurden put three tree paeonies from Japan into our Museum garden. The shrubs, grafted on the fleshy roots of the ordinary paeony, until with luck they develop on their own, intrigued him greatly, as well as their flowers, familiar on Chinese porcelain and on embroidered Chinese robes, though these are yet a long way from flowering. It is intended as a mark of our gratitude and affection for him that the Museum garden and the flowering plants in the Museum itself shall be a perpetual memorial to him, and a sum of money has been willed to the University to ensure this memorial, life and growth ever renewed being more lasting than anything which ultimately may be of no further interest, or may perish.

Up to the end of April Mr. Gurden was in charge of the Museum catalogue of about 750,000 specimens, as well as the catalogue of the Library, and that of negatives made by Mr. K.H.H. Walters. He had complete the card index of the H.A. Gunther collection of Japanese netsuke, inro, and other objects, adding various details of ethnological, mythological, and historical nature to the books in which Dr. Gunther had entered his collection, and which Dr. A.E. Gunther lent to us with his collection. He had also gone some way in preparing an index of carvers, names, and words associated with the collection. As usual Mr. Gurden was responsible for the general administration of the department, including scrutiny of expenditure and advising the Curator thereon, ordering all that the department required, keeping and presenting accounts to the auditors and paying wages, supervision of the Library and its 150 or so readers and research workers, and attending to the many people from all parts of the world who use the Museum personally or by correspondence, much of which requires identification of objects or materials and advice about them. All this was done with unobtrusive ability, kindness, and genuine interest in the inquiries and persons, so that both among ourselves and with the outside world there was created a feeling of confidence and happiness. We were all happy to know that the University recognized his character and ability by raising him to the rank of Administrative Officer, and grieved that he lived so short a time to enjoy the benefit he had earned not by asking but by doing.

Mr. Wootton, our Assistant Secretary, has been Acting Secretary and Librarian, and has dealt with the catalogues formerly managed by Mr. Gurden. During the year he sent out 410 copies of our publications which were sold, and 153 which went for exchange, review, or by gift, and fortunately found time to draw many artefacts and microsections of British Bronze Age implements for Mr. Allen’s forthcoming work on No. 10 of our Occasional Papers on Technology, and to take a large part with Mr. Allen in taking down, classifying, and relabelling the many arrows which were removed to build the new 40-foot case, at the same time helping Mr. Allen to collect information towards No. 11 of our series, which we hope will be on archery. With I.M. Allen he contributed a series of seven articles called ‘Notes on the Cleaning and Preservation of Ancient Coins’ to Seaby’s Coin and Medal Bulletin, each month from December 1960 to July 1961. To Spink’s Numismatic Circular he contributed ‘Some Roman Coins found in North Lincolnshire’, November 1960; ‘A Note on the Origin of a Form of Primitive Currency from the Abors of the Assam-Tibet Frontier’, November 1960 (with I.M. Allen); ‘A strange Use for Coins’ (on four George III halfpennies made into fighting rings at Abingdon, Berkshire), November 1960; ‘The Jubilee Medal of King Nikola of Montenegro, 1860-1910’, December 1960; and ‘Further Notes on the Jubliee Medal of King Nikola’, March 1961. In The Entromologist, vol. 94, April 1961, no. 1175, p. 83, he published a notice of the find of a rare moth larva in Bucks., entitled ‘Acherontia atropos (L) (Lep., Sphingidae) Larva in Buckinghamshire’.

This year Mr. Allen was elected Technical Secretary of the Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute, a position which involves some committee meetings in London and acting as liaison with persons who need advice on such matters as appear in excavations, or have museum problems, some of which can be dealt with in our own laboratories while others require finding the right scientist. It is, as well, a help in our own work which offers the same or similar problems. Mr. Allen’s publications on the cleaning and preservation of ancient coins have been mentioned in the report on Mr. Wootton, the analytical and scientific advice being Mr. Allen’s. Of his own publications we may mention that in Archaeologia Austriaca, 1961, H.H. Coghlan’s ‘Some Problems concerning the Manufacture of Copper Shaft-hole Axes, with Expert Reports by E. Voce and I.M. Allen’, and in the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, 1961, ‘Some Notes on Korean Archery’. This last is a by-product of much correspondence and consultation of many authorities in preparation for our new exhibition. These activities are in additon to regular work in analytical and conservation work for the Museum publication, labelling and distribution of specimens, and attending to the needs of lecturers and research students.

As always, Mr. H.F. Walters continued his endless and recurrent task of supervising the health and safety of collections, now a formidable task with over three-quarters of a million, and in increasing the space for storage and exhibition with incredible ingenuity. When a positive need or a desirable amenity appears he is first to find a way of satisfying either, and oddly enough his additions in an already exiguous space result in more space, both in appearance and in fact.

Mr. K.H.H. Walters had divided the bulk of his time between photographic and recording work, helped in both by Mr. R.P. Rivers. During the year he produced 78 negatives and 95 finished prints, as well as 140 lantern slides. Some further cine-photography was done for Dr. Butt’s long film on the Akawaio of British Guiana, including a new and improved map by Mr. Wootton, and a series of specimens collected on the expedition. Some time was spent in recording, with the help of Mr. River, our xylophones from Burma, Africa, and South America for the work of the Rev. A.M. Jones of the Institute of Oriental and African Studies, a matter which has been on our mind for some time, as we wanted as well as he to know their scales and affinities. Last year we spoke of the difficulties of dealing with our large collection of wax cylinders which were recorded at various different speeds, and announced that Mr. Walters had got over all of the difficulties of playing the soft wax without injury. He has now been successful in overcoming many of the difficulties of varying speed, and has sent specimen tapes to the Rev. A.M. Jones for consultation, and is preparing some of the more difficult linguistic specimens for study by the Institute of Oriental and African Studies and especially for advice on the tones used by the speakers. The preliminary report is very encouraging, and we now can see that the problem of varying speeds is not insuperable but simply slows progress. Once more it may be said that Mr. Walters works under two handicaps, one that photography becomes impossible in very hot weather, and the other that recording has to be done when there is no possible inconvenience to other workers. While these conditions allow Mr. Walters to do a large amount of other Museum work such as we have mentioned, they do hinder progress on his principal work, so that we have to wait much longer than we like for the completion of desirable or necessary work. An air-conditioned studio and a couple of sound-proof recording rooms, no less than room for practical classes, are necessities which have priority even over more room for collections.

Mr. R.P. Rivers has proved himself very able and helpful in his first year as a full Technician, and versatile. Besides helping Mr. K.H. Walters in photography and in the recording studio, and doing excellent work in devising and making many fittings for the Museum, he has taken over all of the work as lanternist and projectionist at lectures, and has a sound knowledge of the collections required in teaching.

Among accessions we mention only a few of the more important and interesting. From Africa we are glad to add to our growing collection of musical recordings the gift by Mrs. C. Renate Barber, a former pupil, of 22 records of African village and town songs made during the last decade by local traders who sold them locally in fairly large numbers. These are 10-inch double-sided, and the languages represented are Hausa, Mende, Mangingo, Susu, and Kissi from West Africa, and Ki-Swahili from East Africa. An extensive collection from the Congo made by the late Samuel William Pring in 1919-20 came from Lady Maybury and Mr. A.W.S. Pring, together with an interesting diary by the collector. We kept 48 items, including weapons, ornaments, baskets, musical instruments, and other objects, and on Lady Maybury’s advice sent duplicates to the American Museum of Natural History, where our good friend and pupil Colin Turnbull has charge of African Ethnology and was glad to have a collection which filled gaps in his own, especially when it came from a personal friend whose collection was well known to him. Our long-standing friend Mr. G.A. Wainwright gave us 11 negatives of Egyptian antiquities, and one from modern Nigeria for comparison. The Egyptian one showed the ram-headed aegis of Amon-rê, and the Nigerian a ram-headed aegis from Lagos. The two are published in Man, 1951, no. 231. Through our pupil Mr. J.D. Kesby of the Oxford and Cambridge 1960 Expedition to Mauretania, we acquired a goatskin water-bag, flute, and camel saddle, as well as a large floor-mat given by Sidi el Mokhtar, Président de l’Assemblée de la République Islamique de la Mauretanie. This is the main floor cover in houses and tents, and is made of palm slats intertwined with narrow strips of leather in geometrical patterns. The Wye College Exploration Society Moroccan Expedition of 1960 provided us with agricultural implements, musical instruments, and a loom complete with a piece of weaving in progress. These came through Mr. D.O.M. Gooday of the expedition.

From the Americas we are happy to note the gift by the B.B.C. of a long-playing 12-inch double-sided record of music from the Akawaio tribe of the Upper Mazaruni District of British Guiana, a selection from extensive collection made by our colleague Audrey Butt on her latest expedition. There is also a long-playing 12-inch double sided record with 30 examples of vocal and instrumental music of the Guajira tribe of Venezuela given by the Law Department of the Comisión Indigenista Nacional of Caracas, Venezuela. Both recordings are a great help to us in building up a collection for the time when we can add an ethnomusicologist to our staff. Through Dr Ralph Johnson and Mr Michael Emerson we are fortunate to acquire a collection of 31 items, including ornaments, pottery, string bags, weapons, especially two fine blowpipes with an account of the method of making, and musical instruments from the Secoya Indians on the Rio Cuyabeo in Ecuador, collected by the Oxford University Exploration Club Expedition to Ecuador in 1960. Through their kindness we were able to take musical recordings of all the instruments in use, amounting to one long complete tape. The Museum owes much to these expeditions, especially since the catalogue is now complete enough for us to follow a definite policy to fill gaps in areas and subjects rather than to hope for the best and find ourselves overloaded in some ways and underdeveloped in others.

Two good old friends from whom we are always happy to hear sent us very useful photographs and postcards. From Mrs Robert Aitken, our first Diploma pupil as Miss Freire Marreco, came a series illustrating Pueblo Indian life and activities between 1910 and 1913, and from Mrs Elsie McDougall, whose collection of Guatemalan and Mexican textiles is published in our Occasional Papers on Technology, another series illustrating Aztec and Maya antiquities.

Miss Lucy Margaret Eyre, a friends and discriminating collector of long standing, continued her Burmese gifts with two fans painted by Maung Sa, Court painter to King Thibaw, the last King of Burma, about 1870. Both are 1 foot 6 1/2 inches long closed, of pale wood, with scenes from Burmese life and story in gold, vermilion and green, one on a black, the other on a white textile ground. They are not the kind carried by Burmese ladies, but done in the style of the mural and other paint9ngs of the day. Our colleague Mr D.F.W. Baden-Powell gave us two Japanese knives with finely carved handles collected by Sir George Baden-Powell about 1893. Mr K.L. Storey added to our huge collection from the Naga Hills mainly made by Professor J.H. Hutton, Mr. J.P. Mills, and Sir Robert Reid, 13 further items in mint condition including weapons and ornaments.

A most interesting gift from Dorothy Lady Young, daughter of Sir Baldwin Spencer, revived an old friendship, and recalled the days of his epic journeys across Australia when he and F.J. Gillen first amazed the world with their accounts of the Arunta and other hitherto unknown tribes in the heart of Australia. The finely flaked lance-head of green bottle glass brings to mind the trouble-some habits of the Arunta in climbing telegraph poles to use the insulators as lance-heads, as the material was easier to use than the traditional quartz. Mr Gillen cured this trouble by supplying plenty of whisky and other bottles at the foot of each pole, and thus saving the Arunta the bother of climbing. This lance-head is the gift of Sir Baldwin's grandson, Sir Alastair Young. The other two gifts, by Dorothy Lady Young and her sister Mrs Clive Rowan, in memory of their father, are more precious and intimate. Of the two churinga, one was given to Spencer by the old men of the Udnirringita Totem of the Arunta tribe on his initiation after introduction by Gillen. It is a pointed, oval, red-ochre-coloured, wooden bullroarer with designs of witchetty grubs and of their eggs, the creatures whose increase for food was the duty of the totem, and contains his soul. As it lay in the sacred store-house, the arumburinga, or immortal and immutable part, rested within it. On his death the ulthana or earthly soul left his body, and mingled with it until, refreshed and strong, it flew forth as the kuruna and entered the body of some woman passing a sacred spot, and was reincarnated.

Of European gifts one may mention Mrs Griffin's of a complete set of wheelwright's tools from Somerset used by Mr Joseph James, who practised all his life in his family business until he died in 1960 at the age of 85. Miss Estella Canziani's unbounded generosity continued in the permanent loan of jewellery, including peasant work, partly from the Piedmont, at the turn of this century, Italian jewellery of the nineteenth century which had belonged to her family, Russian pectoral crosses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and nineteenth-century English jewellery and other Victoriana.

A few small toilet articles from Egypt, Abyssinia and India, and a white jade knucklebone from China remain in our mind as the last of many gifts from our old friend and donor, the late Louis C.G. Clark, sometime Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum and Elector to the Curatorship of this Museum.

Much as one regrets the dispersal of collections, we have benefitted by the decision of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew to disperse the ethnographic section illustrating the use of natural fibres. Large as was the selection made by Miss Blackwood and Dr Butt, we could wish it had been larger  if we could have found room to keep it. Such a combination of raw materials and of finished articles is of great value in the work of identification in large museums. Like everything else we have ever had from Kew, this last gift is in first-rate condition and well documented and labelled, and we are grateful to the Director and to Dr F.N. Hows, Keeper of the Museum of Economic Botany.

In our report of 1955 we recorded the death of James Swan, a friend of the Museum and a generous donor for more than forty years, and noted that subject to a life-interest for his wife, he had left a substantial sum to the Museum for the study of the Batwa and his relatives in Africa and Europe. This annual sum will be available from June 1963, and by Decree (28) of 13 June 1961, the fund shall be known as the James A. Swan Fund and be acknowledged in all publications and by any person or expedition benefitting from it. It shall be used for any work sponsored by the Pitt Rivers Museum on the archaeological, historical, physical and cultural nature of the Batwa (small peoples of Africa e.g. Bushmen and Pygmies, and their prehistoric antecedents, wherever they may have been, in Africa, or possibly in the Mediterranean area), and primarily on fieldwork and publication of such work. The fund shall be administered by the Curator in consultation with the Professor of Social Anthropology and the Reader in Physical Anthropology.

In the past year we gave lectures and other instruction in Ethnology to 60 candidates for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography, 23 Colonial Probationers, and 12 candidates for the Diploma in Anthropology, besides giving help to many research students from the University and from all parts of the world. As usual, a good deal of our time was taken up by looking out, arranging, and re-storing material for practical classes in the public galleries, which had to be closed for the purpose. A most urgent need is a room in which about 70 students can be accommodated at once, with regional arrangements round the walls, so that students can really study material rather than spend one fleeting glance. Moreover, research students have to occupy the library, private rooms, or public galleries, which is inconvenient for us and makes uninterrupted work impossible for them. Any musical or linguistic work is altogether too furtive a matter to seem quite respectable, and requires 'squaring' staff, readers and other workers, sometimes with rather high-power diplomacy.

The Curator lectured in all three terms on Origins of Civilization, supervised candidates for the B.Litt and D.Phil degrees, and continued, with Miss Blackwood, to edit our series of Occasional Papers on Technology, especially No. 10, the forthcoming metallographic study of our British Bronze Age implements, and No. 4, Coghlan's 'Prehistoric Metallurgy of Copper and Bronze in the Old World', which is now reprinting. In view of the retirement of the Curator, which was due on 30 September 1962, the Committee on the Review of Activities took advice from all persons and boards concerned, and asked Sir Thomas Kendrick, ex-Director of the British Museum, for an independent review. The committee also visited the Museum, together with representatives of the Registry and University Chest, and during the full investigation received recommendations from the Curator and others. Besides raising the Curatorship to the status of a full Schedule A Professorship and removing the long-standing arrangement of a seven-year but renewable tenure, the University is actively engaged on the subject of suitable provision for the future of a great National Museum which is part of one University Department of Ethnology and Prehistory, devoted to active teaching and research. To give more time for arrangement, the present Curator has been asked to remain in office until 30 September 1963. It is established that his successor will be a man of experience, and the extra time will be of value to enable us in some measure to repair the grievous loss of our friend and colleague Mr Gurden, whose work as Administrative Secretary and Librarian was the very heart of our existence and growth. The Curator 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 of the Near Eastern Archaeological Prizes, including work as an Examiner, the Committee for Archaeology, the Joint Advisory Science Committee of Council, the Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee and the Committee for Ethnomusicology, both of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and continued as Diploma Secretary for Anthropology and Interviewer of Research Students.

Miss Blackwood, though retired, takes advantage of the relief from teaching to redouble Museum work. She is still working on the revision of the cards in the Subject Index and on the compilation of a Handlist of Subjects for quick consultation. Both of these long-term pieces of work are nearing completion, but there are still desirable additions to the data on some of the older cards in both Regional and Subject Indexes so as to make them more explicit to our successors who may be less familiar with the past history of the collections than we are. One always has to bear in mind that what we take for granted may well be a mystery in a hundred years, which only a series of D.Phil theses could elucidate, probably with errors which no one could correct. Work has also continued on the Gazetteer of African Tribes represented in the Museum, a necessity in view of their number and changes in nomenclature over the centuries. Other work included the entry and labelling of the large Canziani collection and of an interesting series of wheelwright's tools from Somerset, interrupted as usual by a steady stream of inquiries, personal and by letter, requiring help on a multitude of subjects. During the year she continued to publish in Folklore, December 1960 and June 1961, her series of 'Museum News' on subjects and specimens of interest to members of the Society, collected from Museum Reports, articles in the press, and personal visits to museums here and abroad, and in December 1960 published in Folklore reports on the Thirty-fourth International Congress of Americanists at Vienna in July, and the Sixth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Paris in August. She continued to serve on the Council of the Folklore Society, the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and also on the British Ethnography Committee and the Middle and South American Research Committee, both of the R.A.I.

Dr Butt gave her course on Lands and Peoples with accompanying practical classes in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms, dealing with the Americas and Africa, and in Trinity Term gave one course on East African Material Culture for Diploma students, and one on Material Culture of East and West Africa for Commonwealth Cadets. Lands and Peoples was given both to Diploma students and to candidates for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography. She gave tuition to 36 pupils, examined for the Preliminary in Geography, and for the Diploma in Anthropology. Museum work included the sorting and labelling of a considerable number of drawers in three of our series: ornaments, spoons, and manuscripts, among them the valuable Burmese collection given by Sir Richard Temple, which can now be more easily studied and classified by appropriate scholars. She made herself responsible for entering a considerable number of American and African accessions, and besides choosing material from the University Ecuador Expedition, worked with Mr K.H.H. Walters in selecting and recording music which illustrated the instruments collected. Outside lectures included several for the B.B.C., the Herbertson Society, the Institute of Social Anthropology, the College of Psychic Science (on shamanism), the Overseas League, the Horniman Museum, and University College, London. She served as a Senior Member of the newly founded Women's Expedition Club, took part in the Royal Photographic Society's symposium 'Photography on Expeditions', served as Hon. Secretary of the Committee for Middle and South American Research and found time to complete two more chapters in the book which embodies the results of her recent expedition to British Guiana.

Dr Burridge gave lectures to Diploma students and to candidates for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms on Lands and Peoples of Asia and Oceania, and to Diploma students in Trinity Term on an Introduction to the Study of Myth. Classes included Practicals for Diploma students in all three terms, a class on India for Diploma students in Hilary Term, and classes for Commonwealth Cadets on Asia and Oceania in Trinity Term. He gave tuition to 36 pupils in General Ethnology, and examined in Ethnology for he Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography. Museum work included entry of accessions from Asia and Oceania, and the large collection from Kew Gardens illustrating the use of natural fibres from many parts of the world.

During the only term Trinity, that he has been with us, Mr Britton lectured weekly on Methods and Aims in Prehistoric Archaeology, and made a start in modernising the display and classifying more fully the European Neolithic collections, dealing with stored material, and the catalogue of the material at the same time. He has also started to classify the slides on European Prehistory, add to them, and make a slip index. He gave two lectures to the London University Institute of Archaeology and on to the University Archaeological Society on The Study of Bronze Working in the British Bronze Age Methods and Results, and has completed a paper on 'The Earliest Metal Industries of Britain' for the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, and with Eva Richards a chapter entitled 'Optical Emission Spectroposcopy and the Study of Metallury in the European Bronze Age' for Science in Archaeology, edited by D. Brothwell and E.S. Higgs. He took part in a conference on 'Africa and the Beginnings of Culture' arranged by the Prehistoric Society in London on 12-14 May of this year.

In conclusion it remains to thank Mrs M.E. Fowler, who keeps the place clean and shining and homelike as her own house, and is always cheerful and helpful, also our oldest and liveliest member Mr F.J. Nipress, who is a jolly court attendant, messenger, and general shopper, indefatigable in pursuit of the unusual when need arises.

Apart from research workers and regular students, there were 8,418 visitors to the Museum, including parties from 66 schools or other organizations.

T.K. Penniman