CURIOSITIES FROM THE PACIFIC OCEAN

Description

At the end of the eighteenth century, the French Bruny d’Entrecasteaux sailing in the Western part of the Pacific Ocean. On the return trip, this famous expedition made a stop in a Java via port using port facilities of the Dutch East Indies. Dutch senior officials VOCs, SC Nederburgh temporarily stationed at the time on Java, were able to acquire a number of objects collected during the expedition, which is why part of the collection Bruny d’Entrecasteaux was finished in a Dutch museum. “The Pacific Ocean Curiosities.” A remarkable rediscovery in the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam thirteen ethnographic objects Bruny d’Entrecasteaux Expedition (1791-1794). Indeed, these objects including eleven clubs, a spear and a pound of food deserve more attention than they have received so far. They were acquired during the French expedition several Melanesian and Polynesian islands in 1792 and 1793, about thirteen years after the journey of the third and last expedition of English explorer James Cook. Therefore, they are considered part of the oldest Oceanic collections of ethnographic museums in the West. The authors were able to trace, in every detail, the history of the acquisition of these, and to establish a link between the important and interesting items now stored in Dutch and French ethnographic institutions.