Explorers

and museums

This small book, 100 Years of Australian Scientific Explorations, profusely illustrated and well presented, commemorates the centenary of Sir William Macleay’s scientific expedition to New Guinea.

It consists of 14 brief essays, by six authors, on some of the people who have made notable contributions to the scien tific exploration of Australia.

The two essays by Dr Peter Stanbury, the editor, are of special interest to Pacific Islanders.

One of the two essays deals with Baron Mikloucho-Maclay, who made several visits to New Guinea between 1871 and 1883, (C.L. Sentinella’s excellent English translation of Maclay’s New Guinea diaries was reviewed by Judy Tudor in PIM, December, 1975.) Stanbury’s other essay is about Sir William Macleay (no relation of the Russian scientist), squatter, Member of Parliament and scientist, who bought the Chevert, a 300-tonner ship, in 1 875 and, accompanied by several scientists, took her on a voyage along the Papuan coast which yielded a rich harvest of an thropological, zoological and other scien

tific specimens.

Dr Stanbury is curator of the Macleay Museum, Sydney, which has a fine ethnological collection, the basis of which comes from the Chevert expedition and from Mikloucho-Maclay’s studies in Melanesia and Micronesia.

The Macleay Museum is mainly con cerned with zoology, insects, 19th century technology and anthropology. It is situated within the University of Sydney and open to public viewing between 8.30 am and 4.30 pm, Monday to Friday.

Sydney has two other museums and an art gallery which contain much of con siderable interest to Pacific Islanders. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (659 Harris Street, Ultimo) opens 10am to 5 pm, Monday to Saturday; 2 pm to 5 pm, Sunday, except Good Friday and Christmas Day, displays models of ships which sailed the South Pacific, and it holds the diaries of Lawrence Hargrave, the aviation pioneer who made several visits to New Guinea.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales (Domain, open 10am to 5 pm, Monday to Saturday; 1 2 noon to 5 pm, Sunday) has a fine collection of Australian aboriginal and Melanesian art, and a number of paintings in its excellent assembly, eg Race

to the Market, Tahiti, painted by Nicholas Chevalier in 1880, are of particular in terest.

Over 600,000 people a year visit the Australian Museum, College Street, which is open from 10am to 5 pm, Tuesday to Saturday; 12 noon to 5 pm, Sunday and Monday.

It contains an excellent educational and general interest display of the evolution of our planet, an equally meritorious show of the fauna of Australia and Papua New Guinea, and other displays of much in terest. Even so, the Pacific collections will probably rank first with visitors from the Islands.

The foundation of these collections was laid between 1885 and 1900 with the acquisition of more than 4,000 items from six collectors in New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia. Among them are items from the Solomons and Bismarck Ar

chipelago purchased from Thomas

Farrell, Richard Parkinson and Mrs Kolbe (Queen Emma).

There are also about 200 malaggan carvings from New Ireland and many dance paddles from Buka. Among the 183 items collected during Cook’s voyages, which the museum bought in 1 890, there are a woven breast-plate worn for protection in battle and made from sinnet, feathers, shark’s teeth, pearl shell and dog hair, which was acquired by Cook in the Society Islands on his first voyage, and a woven helmet from Hawaii, said to have been presented to Cook by King

Halaviopuie (Kalaniopu) in 1779 shortly

before Cook’s death.

Nearly every major region of the mainland of Papua New Guinea is represented in the Australian Museum’s collections, eg more than 1,000 items

from Collingwood and Goodenough Bays on the north-east coast of Papua, presen ted by the Rev Percy Money, an Anglican missionary, between 1904 and 1914, and the H. D. Eve collection, made along the Middle Sepik and received in 1938, which contains a large number of decorated bamboo smoking pipes.

There is, too, the largest donation to the museum; the entire contents of the late Melbourne Ward’s private museum at Katoomba. This collection numbers more than 5,000 specimens from every part of the Pacific and it is particularly strong on Melanesia, including Papua New Guinea.

The museum’s policy of presenting as fully as possible each Island group of Melanesia and other regions of the Pacific, to let visitors see some of the secular and religious past and present of the peoples, is an excellent one.

As Dr Jim Specht, Curator of An thropology, puts it, “there are many museums throughout the world which may have better collections from specific areas, but few, if any, which can offer the geographical scope and depth of the Australian Museum.'”

This museum does not only help Australian and other Western visitors to gain a better appreciation of the peoples of the Pacific; it also enables visiting Pacific Islanders to see items which reflect the skill, artistry and, indeed, the way of life of their ancestors items which are often no longer found in the islands.

Harry Jackman

(100 Years Of Australian Scien

Tific Explorations.

By P. Stanbury. Published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Sydney, 1975 $4.95.)