Paper short abstract:

With objects and materials from recent fieldwork in Tahiti (2017-2018), the paper explores the insights that can be gained from tracing museum artefacts to the moments of their making in 18th century Polynesia - and how learning to plait a cord may help see old connections and tie new ones.

Paper long abstract:

Failing to find safe passage through the Great Barrier Reef, HMS Pandora sank in 1791 after a five-month search through Oceania for the mutineers of the Bounty. Since the discovery of the wreck in 1977, many objects were transferred from the bottom of the ocean to the Museum of Tropical Queensland in Australia, including a range of artefacts classified as Polynesian material culture. The collection is considered significant, because it can be ascribed to a specific time, place and context. However, with the sinking of the ship, knowledge once attached to the artefacts has been lost - and not all materials were able to survive the long time underwater.

Among the objects recovered from the wreck are several fish-hook shanks made from pearl shell. By comparison with similar artefacts, we can assume that they were components of fishing lures for trolling bonito, attached to a shell or bone hook point. Normally, fine plaited cords made of vegetable fibre hold the individual pieces together and help them maintain their form and fulfill their purpose, that is, to resemble small fish when moving in the water that will attract the much larger bonito. In the case of the Pandora collection, these cords have dissolved. Yet, we are able to piece the objects together through research and the exchange of knowledge, especially in Polynesia itself. The paper explores the threads that unfold from tracing artefacts and materials and the importance of this approach for a deeper understanding of both objects and people.