Great Smokin' Tattooed Maori Heads!
Today's WTF Daguerreotype Moment is brought to you courtesy of my new favorite weblog, Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society, and shows amateur anthropologist, Major General Horatio Gordon Robley posing in front of his collection of smoked, tattooed Maori heads.
Yes, you heard me correctly, they're the heads of Maori chiefs preserved by smoking after being detached from the bodies of their owners by Maori warriors. Many of these heads were sold to European collectors like Robley and wound up in museum collections.
Those were the days.
[Link: Robley’s Collection of Tattooed Heads]
[Link: Bio of Major General Robley]
Comments
And a nice old Patu war club in the lower left. The demand for tattooed heads got to be so high that the Maori would force their slaves to be tattooed for the sole purpose of being beheaded to trade to white folks. Eventually someone decided that this was bad and banned the collecting of Maori moko heads. These days, they are in the vaults of older museums. The Maori claim these heads as their property for one thing and demand they be returned. It is also becoming less and less accepted to display human remains in any form in museums. Shrunken heads and certainly Maori moko heads are likley to disappear from public view. The old curator photos are the only way to see them now.
Posted by: Swanky | August 1, 2006 10:27 AM
true.. true... i remember when the natural history museum in dc displayed native american bones and mummies... good luck finding them now.
thanks for letting us get a head, mr. bh
Posted by: johnny dollar | August 1, 2006 11:48 AM
No worries, johnny. I'm glad you didn't thank me for giving you head...;-)
Posted by: MrBaliHai | August 1, 2006 12:06 PM
Swanky, yeah, I read that bit about the Maoris chopping off and smoking the heads of prisoners to sell to passing ships. What a bunch of innovative entrepreneurs!
Posted by: MrBaliHai | August 1, 2006 12:09 PM
Damn! I hate being introduced to blogs I like more than my own.
Thanks MrH. Great find.
Posted by: jmorrison | August 1, 2006 5:42 PM
jaime: for me, it was like hearing a guitar player that I love, but knowing that I'll never be that good.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | August 1, 2006 6:19 PM