Banaban artefacts at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford UK

[Jeremy Cooper]

Barbara and I visited the Pitt Rivers Museum again yesterday and I photographed 4 artefacts. Please see my Banaba website to see the photos (much better than the old ones!):

http://www.banaba.org.uk

[Molly Amon]

Thank you for the beautiful photographs of these artifacts. Is there a possibility of having them returned to Rabi? If so then what are the necessary procedures to engage in please.

All the best

[Jeremy Cooper]

Thanks for your appreciation of the photos - it's not easy to get decent shots through glass with no extra lighting.

I'm afraid you'll have to approach the Museum about returning the objects. I know they do take such requests seriously. Try emailing on
[e-mail]

I can understand why you'd like the objects returned to the descendants of the people who made them. But if they go to Rabi, how many people will ever see them? In Oxford they can show off one aspect of Banaban culture to many tens of thousands of visitors every year.

This is a tricky area of debate about all sorts of objects, from the Elgin Marbles to human remains.

All the best,

Jeremy

[Marlie Rota]

I am in total agreement with you Jeremy. As much as we want to take back what belongs to us, I am afraid that bringing them back will open up avenues of the artefacts being stolen, mutilated or destroyed. Not withstanding 'world class professional artefact theft', I feel it is much safer where it is now. It also provides the opportunity for showcasing to other people what Banaban 'art' is, who knows the other museums around the world might 'borrow' the pieces to showcase in their very own galleries.

Having said that, I also believe that a much more proactive effort should be taken to mimic the art or build around the styles. With the incoporation of traditional cultural learning into the Rabi High School curricula is a good foundation for such efforts. They can easily request for materials to be brought in from Banaba or better still make do with available resources on Rabi Island.

Jeremy Cooper said:

Thanks for your appreciation of the photos - it's not easy to get decent shots through glass with no extra lighting.

I'm afraid you'll have to approach the Museum about returning the objects. I know they do take such requests seriously. Try emailing on
[e-mail]

I can understand why you'd like the objects returned to the descendants of the people who made them. But if they go to Rabi, how many people will ever see them? In Oxford they can show off one aspect of Banaban culture to many tens of thousands of visitors every year.

This is a tricky area of debate about all sorts of objects, from the Elgin Marbles to human remains.

All the best,

Jeremy

[Ken Sigrah]

Hi Jeremy,
It's been 12 years since we did the Home Coming trip to Banaba yet Stacey and I are still waitng for your visit to Oz with Barbara. In regard to the artefacts at Pitt Rivers do you think a short Banaban history, say a paragraph or two could be placed next to the pieces? Just to show people where Banaba is on the map and a bit of Banaban history as a displaced people. I think the artefacts could be our witnesses to the outer world in telling our story. Just an idea.

Teke raoi ao tia boo moa.
Ken.

[Jeremy Cooper]

Hi Ken,

Those 12 years have just raced by! By the way, Barbara and I got married in January (after 17 years living together) - it was Leap Year last year and Barbara took the opportunity to propose on 29th February. We squeezed the wedding into the period when Barbara had just become 50 and I had not yet quite become 61. To avoid any "fuss" we married in complete secrecy - nobody knew beforehand apart from the Registrar and our witnesses: it was a very simple, but very sincere ceremony. I had great fun telling my kids afterwards. Our method of getting married appealed so much to my eldest daughter that she and her boyfriend did it the same way a month or so ago!

Anyway...

The Pitt Rivers collection is a wonderful, old fashioned, collection in the Victorian style, with thousands of objects packed into display cases. It is much loved (and much used) in that style, and a recent refurbishment did nothing to disturb it. Part of that style is that the objects are displayed according to what they are made of and made for, and which continent they come from. That way it's possible in one long display cabinet to look at object made of beads from all over the world, with the bead objects from (for example) Oceania, grouped together. So there is simply no space for explanatory texts, and no precedent for them - it's just not the way it works there.

That probably seems a pity, but if they added texts, they'd have to reduce the number of objects on display by a factor of hundreds, and that would be a bigger shame.

For more about the Pitt Rivers Museum, have a look at
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/

All the best,

Jeremy