Archaeology and the collection: tracing material relationships in colonial Papua from 1875 to 1925

Abstract

Australia has had a long and entangled history of engagement with Papua New Guinea and its peoples from the time of the earliest British and Australian explorations in the nineteenth century, through the period of colonial administration from 1902 to 1975, and continuing into the present day. One lasting outcome from the early period of these colonial engagements are the collections of ethnographic objects made by explorers, miners, traders, missionaries and government administrators in the course of their interactions with indigenous Papuans. The collections housed in Australian museums provide a different sort of narrative to that found in written documents. In contrast, they are a material archive that records in its physical properties and composition, traces of the kinds of cross-cultural interactions that occurred in the early days of the colony. They form a tangible legacy which documents how Papuans and Westerners alike used the exchange of objects to negotiate and create social relationships in a time of flux and uncertainty. The collections, the objects and their materialities not only inform us about what shaped Western collecting desires but also about how Papuan artefact producers and traders responded strategically and creatively to new opportunities for trade and exchange.