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A missionary collector in New GuineaHere you can see some of the artefacts collected by Reverend John Henry Holmes. He lived in the Gulf of Papua from 1893 to 1917, and was one of the earliest missionaries to work in this area. At that time white European missionaries worked alongside teachers of Christianity from other South Sea Islands. Holmes also wrote articles for the British Royal Anthropological Institute. His interest in anthropology meant that he collected many different kinds of objects, not just the types that appealed to art collectors. Here you can see two of the objects he collected.According to Reverend JH Holmes the designs carved on the belt (below left) are symbolic representations or portraits of ancestral spirits.
Men took these protective charms (above right) when they went on journeys, to protect them from strangers and the spells of sorcerers. They were worn in small twined bags around their necks. What didn’t he collect and why?Reverend JH Holmes was aware that the people he worked among still considered some objects to be sacred, for example masks. When he tried to buy a mask, he was not prevented. He records: “…It had to be burnt…As one member of the family … remarked ‘If we had sold it to you and you had sent it to Beritani (Britain), our totem-ancestor would have known, been angry, and… we should all have died.’” This means that this museum does not have any masks collected by Holmes. In this section
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