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History

World Cultures

Oceania

National Museums NI holds just over 300 objects from Oceania. As early as the 1830s, Ulster travellers, merchants, sea captains, and army and navy personnel collected materials from the regions of Australasia and islands across the Pacific, encompassing Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. Items of weaponry in the collection include boomerangs, clubs, swords, spears, shields, bows and arrows, and a stone axe. Cultural and artistic items include dress and ornamental objects, tapa cloth, a painting, carved wooden figures and statuettes, ceremonial pandanus headdresses and tabards, grass skirts, armlets, nose rings, pendants, and gauntlets. Tools and implements, include domestic items, featuring food bowls and dishes, combs, ladles, forks and spoons, pillows and baskets. There also are fishing hooks and digging sticks and fans from Fiji and Kiribati. These objects represent significant aspects of tradition, craftsmanship and cultural heritage within their respective communities.

Some objects shown here, such as scrimshaw, were made by Western sailors during voyages in Oceania, other objects such as Atlases relate to the voyages of Captain James Cook and consist of maps and engraved illustrations of landscapes and people in Oceania. They reflect moments of exchange and interaction with local Indigenous communities.

More information on the collections can be found in Ulster Museum publications, Travelling to Port Phillip, Realms of the Pacific, and Polynesia, written by former Curator Winifred Glover. These can be accessed at the National Museums NI Library in Cultra. Visiting the Library | National Museums NI