THE DEPARTMENT OF ETHNOGRAPHY
Much
of the more recent collecting was carried out in the field, sometimes by Museum
staff working on general anthropological projects in collaboration with a wide
variety of national governments and other institutions. The material collected
includes great technical series - for instance, of textiles from Bolivia, Guatemala,
Indonesia and areas of West Africa - or of artefact types such as boats. The
latter include working examples of coracles from India, reed boats from Lake
Titicaca in the Andes, kayaks from the Arctic, and dug-out canoes from several
countries. The field assemblages, such as those from the Sudan, Madagascar and
Yemen, include a whole range of material culture representative of one people.
This might cover the necessities of life of an African herdsman or on Arabian
farmer, ritual objects, or even on occasion airport art. Again, a series of
acquisitions might represent a decade’s fieldwork documenting social experience
as expressed in the varieties of clothing and jewelry styles, tents and camel
trappings from various Middle Eastern countries, or in the developing
preferences in personal adornment and dress from Papua New Guinea. Particularly
interesting are a series of collections which continue to document the
evolution of ceremony and of material forms for which the Department already
possesses early (if nor the earliest) collections formed after the first contact
with Europeans.
The
importance of these acquisitions extends beyond the objects themselves. They
come of the Museum with documentation of the social context, ideally including
photographic records. Such acquisitions have multiple purposes. Most
significantly they document for future change. Most people think of the
cultures represented in the collection in terms of the absence of advanced
technology. In fact, traditional practices draw on a continuing wealth of
technological ingenuity. Limited resources and ecological constraints are often
overcome by personal skills that would be regarded as exceptional in the West.
Of growing interest is the way in which much of what we might see as disposable
is, elsewhere, recycled and reused.
With
the Independence of much of Asia and Africa after 1945, it was assumed that
economic progress would rapidly lead to the disappearance or assimilation of
many small-scale societies. Therefore, it was felt that the Museum should
acquire materials representing people whose art or material culture, ritual or
political structures were on the point of irrevocable change. This attitude
altered with the realization that marginal communities can survive and adapt.
Inspire of partial integration into a notoriously fickle world economy. Since
the seventeenth century, with the advent of trading companies exporting
manufactured textiles to North America and Asia, the importation of cheap goods
has often contributed to the destruction of local skills and indigenous
markets. On the one hand modern imported goods may be used in an everyday
setting, while on the other hand other traditional objects may still be
required for ritually significant events. Within this context trade and
exchange attitudes are inverted. What are utilitarian objects to a Westerner
may be prized objects in other cultures – when transformed by local ingenuity –
principally for aesthetic value. In some way, the West imports goods from other
peoples and in certain circumcircles categorizes them as ‘art’.
Collections
act as an ever-expanding database, nor merely for scholars and anthropologists,
but for people involved in a whole range of educational and artistic purposes.
These include schools and universities as well as colleges of art and design.
The provision of information about non-Western aesthetics and techniques, not
just for designers and artists but for all visitors, is a growing
responsibility for a department whose own context is an increasingly
multicultural European society.
Questions
1 – 6
Do the
following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1 –
6 on your answer sheet write
TRUE if the statement is true according to
the passage
FALSE if the statement is false according
to the passage
|
Example Answer
The Department of Ethnography
replaced the Department of Antiquities FALSE
at the British Museum.
1 The twentieth-century collections
come mainly from mainstream societies such as the US and Europe.
2 The Department of Ethnography focuses
mainly on modern societies.
3 The Department concentrates on
collecting single unrelated objects of great value.
4 The textile collection of the
Department of Ethnography is the largest in the world.
5 Traditional societies are highly
inventive in terms of technology.
6 Many small-scale societies have
survived and adapted in spite of predictions to the contrary.
Questions
7 – 12
Some of the
exhibits at the Department of Ethnography are listed below (Questions 7 – 12).
The writer
gives these exhibits as examples of different collection types.
Match each
exhibit with the collection type with which it is associated in Reading Passage
1.
Write the
appropriate letters in boxes 7 – 12 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any collection type more
than once.
Example Answer
Boats AT
7 Bolivian textiles
8 Indian coracles
9 airport art
10 Arctic kayaks
11 necessities of life of an Arabian
farmer
12 tents from the Middle East
ANSWER KEY
1 FALSE // F
2 FALSE // F
3 FALSE // F
4 NOT GIVEN // NG
5 TRUE // T
6 TRUE // T
7 TS // Technical Series
8 AT // Artefact Types
9 FA // Field Assemblages
10 AT // Artefact Types
11 FA//Field Assemblages
12 SE // Social Experience