The Torres Strait Islands collection at the Australian Museum

Florek, Stan

doi:10.3853/j.1031-8062.19.2005.1464

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Finally, there are examples in human culture in which ceremonial or decorative items become more complex to manufacture, independent of their original function (functioning instead, for example, as signs of wealth, position, skill or power) and thus without increases in the efficiency with which a target is achieved (Basalla, ). For example, the Torres Strait Islanders created ornate decorative (turtle shell) fish hook ornaments that were worn by married women (Hedley, 1907, cited by Florek, ), creating complex, carved, symbolic cultural artefacts that did not increase the efficiency of the item's original fishing function (although the efficiency with which it acted as a display could be investigated).…”

Section: Why Are There Differences In Cumulative Culture Between Humamentioning

confidence: 99%

Human cumulative culture: a comparative perspective

et al. 2013

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Many animals exhibit social learning and behavioural traditions, but human culture exhibits unparalleled complexity and diversity, and is unambiguously cumulative in character. These similarities and differences have spawned a debate over whether animal traditions and human culture are reliant on homologous or analogous psychological processes. Human cumulative culture combines high‐fidelity transmission of cultural knowledge with beneficial modifications to generate a ‘ratcheting’ in technological complexity, leading to the development of traits far more complex than one individual could invent alone. Claims have been made for cumulative culture in several species of animals, including chimpanzees, orangutans and New Caledonian crows, but these remain contentious. Whilst initial work on the topic of cumulative culture was largely theoretical, employing mathematical methods developed by population biologists, in recent years researchers from a wide range of disciplines, including psychology, biology, economics, biological anthropology, linguistics and archaeology, have turned their attention to the experimental investigation of cumulative culture. We review this literature, highlighting advances made in understanding the underlying processes of cumulative culture and emphasising areas of agreement and disagreement amongst investigators in separate fields.

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Section: Why Are There Differences In Cumulative Culture Between Humamentioning

confidence: 99%

Human cumulative culture: a comparative perspective

et al. 2013

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“…More significantly, there is a documented connection between Haddon's and Black's collecting activities. In 1908, Black donated 49 Torres Strait artifacts to the Australian Museum (Florek ). He acquired the artifacts from John or “Jack” Bruce, the resident school teacher stationed on Mer (Murray Island) since 1892, perhaps during one of Black's frequent inspection trips to Thursday Island.…”

Section: Moment 1: Assembling the Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He acquired the artifacts from John or “Jack” Bruce, the resident school teacher stationed on Mer (Murray Island) since 1892, perhaps during one of Black's frequent inspection trips to Thursday Island. In 1905, Bruce had sent Haddon a set of artifacts “similar in composition and number” to the set acquired by Black (Florek :42). Both sets appear, at least in part, to have been commissioned by Bruce; each set contains a mourning costume worn by a widow or widower during the mourning period.…”

Section: Moment 1: Assembling the Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Haddon had witnessed a funeral in 1898 in which he noted that such mourning dress, due to the adoption of Christianity and the missionary influence, was no longer used. It would appear, then, that “both sets were collected at the same time prior to 1905, and presumably the second set that was not sent to Haddon was eventually obtained by Black” (Florek :43)…”

Section: Moment 1: Assembling the Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Notes for a Networked Biography: The P. G. T. Black Collection of Oceanic Things

Foster

2012

Museum Anthropology

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In 1938, the Buffalo Museum of Science acquired some 62 hundred objects collected between 1886 and 1916 by and for P. G. Black, a branch inspector for Burns, Philp & Company Ltd., the famous Sydney‐based mercantile and shipping firm. Despite the collection's size, breadth, and significance as a product of the colonial encounter in northern Australia and Melanesia, its history is still largely unrecorded. This article begins to trace the social life of the collection by narrating a formative moment in its biography: the period of Burns, Philp's expansion into the southwest Pacific during which Black assembled the collection. It also identifies two other moments: the years after Black's death in 1921 when the overseas purchase of the collection was decried in Australian newspapers and the years after the collection came to Buffalo when objects were loaned for display at American fine arts museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. At these particular biographical moments, objects in the collection were differently construed as native curios and ethnological specimens, national patrimony, and primitive art. This article advances a trend of recent scholarship in anthropology and museology by foregrounding the historical circumstances and social relations that condition the appropriation of objects. [Buffalo Museum of Science, P. G. T. Black Collection, Oceania, Australian Museum, art/artifact, object biography, national patrimony]

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