Heads and ‘cultures:’ A. C. Haddon, colonial exploration and the ‘Strickland River’ inscription

ABSTRACT

This essay examines how anthropogeographical conceptions become materialized in place names inscribed on human remains. With respect to a type of headhunting artefact designated in museum anthropology as ‘stuffed human heads’, I consider processes of inscription and theorizing accompanying the circulation of stuffed heads between New Guinea and Cambridge. I trace the micro-history of one inscription – ‘Strickland R’ – across interrelated labels, articles, texts, notes, and the head itself, in order to reveal intellectual constructs simultaneously abbreviated and materialized in the human remains. In Papua, stuffed heads were understood as evidence of the geography of headhunting and cannibal customs. In Cambridge, they were framed within anthropologist A. C. Haddon's studies on the anthropogeography of New Guinea. By abbreviating colonial and scientific constructs, the words ‘Strickland R.’ enabled the material ‘stuffed head’ into which they fused to become inextricably linked to the theory and display of ‘culture areas’ in the museum.

KEYWORDS:

• headhunting
• culture areas
• colonialism
• anthropological collections
• museums
• New Guinea

Acknowledgements

I thank Bronwen Douglas and Chris Ballard for guidance and insightful comments as editors of this special issue; and Nicholas Thomas, Anita Herle, and Rachel Hand at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology for generous support in clarifying the cataloguing history of the collections.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Haddon was probably referring to the stuffed head (now Z 9367) sent through Riley in 1921, already held by the Cambridge MAA, and to a head held in the Manchester museum. He examined both for his ‘heads’ article (1923, 36).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology: [Grant no. PTDC/HAR- HIS/28577/2017].