By: Jane Goodale
Volume XXI / Number 3
It was April when I arrived on Melville Island, in the company of a small group of men, with the purpose of studying the culture of the Islanders, and it was eight months later that 1 packed up my notebooks and flew home. During this time we were amply supported by the National Geographic Society […]
By: Ward Goodenough
Volume XIX / Number 1
Romantic tradition in the western world pictures primitive communities as exciting combinations of colorful dress, bizarre customs, and sinister rites. Anthropologists, who make it a business to study these communities, are used to finding their inhabitants normal human beings most of whose time is concerned with the daily requirements of making a living. Furthermore, they […]
By: Schuyler Cammann
Volume XVIII / Number 3
When anyone mentions walrus ivory, we immediately think of small Eskimo carvings from the northernmost parts of the world. The words may even conjure up a mental picture of short yellow men in fur clothing, spearing the huge sea mammals from slender skin boats, and later cutting out the long tusks to carve or engrave […]
By: Keith Little
Volume XVII / Number 1
During my recent visit to Papua and New Guinea, I had occasion to spend a weekend at the Sogeri Education Center, near Port Moresby. Operated by the government, the Center is primarily for training native school teachers and clerks. Mr. Keith Little, a member of its faculty, has stimulated the students to paint pictures illustrating […]
By: W. H. G.
Volume XVII / Number 1
Some of the finest of the University Museum’s collections come from New Guinea and the adjacent islands. For some time, however, the Museum’s research programs have been focused on other areas. Last spring it was decided to look into the possibilities for resuming research in the Western Pacific. To this end I spent the three […]
By: Lincoln Kirstein
Volume XVI / Number 3
Mr. Kirstein was the only selector to choose a piece from the Museum’s large New Ireland collection. Of this dance mask, he said: Being neither an art-historian nor an anthropologist, the galaxy of objects in the reserve collections of the University Museum attract me primarily as having links with my own work, which is in […]
By: Rene D'Harnoncourt
Volume XVI / Number 3
Mr. d’Harnoncourt chose a Sepik River wood sculpture from New Guinea. That is a fine thing without any qualification. I have never seen anything from Oceania that is such a personal work of art. It is one of the most extraordinary examples of the so-called prime art, because it combines, within a clearly defined style, […]
By: Charles Addams
Volume XVI / Number 3
Charles Addams chose this figure of a whale from a Tlingit helmet, Southeast Alaska, and remarked: These objects were selected by me because they’re funny and were probably intended to be when they were executed. I like this killer whale helmet because I like the crazy interesting construction, although I can never think it was […]
By: Jacques Lipchitz
Volume XVI / Number 3
Mr. Lipchitz was asked why he had chosen this Mayan stone relief from Honduras, and he said: When you asked me to come to the cellars of the University Museum-to find on each shelf some hidden pieces to be exhibited in a special show, I was thrilled because all my hunting instincts were suddenly reawakened. […]
By: Franklin C. Watkins
Volume XVI / Number 3
Mr. Watkins liked this bamboo zither from Borneo and said: In the room where all the musical instruments are stored away, lying flat and still, silenced in dirt and dust, this little contrivance attracted my notice with the click of a sharp mechanical drawing. I’ve never seen anything of its kind. I like the sleek […]