Collected ethnographic objects as cultural representations: Rev. Robertson's collection from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu);

Abstract

This study compares a collection of decontextualized objects in McGill's Redpath Museum with contemporary historical accounts to see what congruencies can be established between them. It focuses on 125 artifacts gathered in the New Hebrides by a Nova Scotian missionary living on Erromanga between 1872 and 1913. These objects have never been studied before. Collected ethnographic objects are usually studied as they are found in the museum or as they might have been in the field--the movement from one place to the other is not considered significant. Critical consideration of the collecting process imparts information about the manufacture and use of objects, offers insights regarding the relation between local and introduced material culture, and reveals the historically contingent, intercultural relations that made collecting possible. It also exposes the foreign, local, cultural, and individual influences at work when certain items were selected, while others were left behind.