Welcome to my blogspot where I am going to record and share all information about the adventures that I am going to have during the Spring 2014 semester as a student in ANTH 177 - Museum Methods.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Lab Hours

May 4 Research in Library 3 hours
May 7 Online research
May 10 Entering data and research 6 hours
May 12 De Young Museum in San Francisco, 6 hours
May 12 Museum to re measure items. finished organizing info  4 hours
May 13 Museum to check database numbers, final prep of info 2 hours

Friday, May 9, 2014

Chinese Tobacco Pouch and Healds College Advertising Mirror - HELP

Anyone run into information on either of these types of items???

Maori cape, skirts, weaving and SEA BEANS or Matchbox Beans

I have a couple of excellent books on Maori weaving, capes, cloaks, skirts, mats.  Also a book in Tropical Drift Seeds - Calling Jessica, get in touch with me!!

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Matchbox Beans

I found some online information about Matchbox Beans.  This is for Jessica mainly.



Matchbox Bean
A robust climbing vine native to the east coast of Cape York produces a poisonous giant hanging bean. The white section of the bean was extracted, baked and pounded to produce a sort of flour that was soaked in fresh water and eaten as a bland, tasteless “porridge”. The bark and stem were soaked in water and crushed with the resulting toxic lather used as a soap and fish poison.

Australia's Bountiful Burny Beans
Burny beans, also known as Velvet beans, are better known by the scientific name of Mucuna gigantea. They drop from a rampant, fast-growing vine found in monsoon forests, open forests and woodlands, riverine, littoral, subtropical and tropical rainforests. Ours are collected from the beaches of Far Northern Queensland, Australia. They can also be found throughout Asia.

Mucuna gigantea has pale green flowers in spring and summer. The fruit is a brown, thick pod containing 4 black seeds. Brindle red and black or brown seeds can also be found, but are not nearly as common as the black. This vine is a useful screening plant and readily attracts butterflies. The seed germinates quickly by nicking the hard outer coat.

In Australia, powdered bark from the vine is mixed with dry ginger and used for rheumatic complaints by rubbing it over the affected areas. The seed was once eaten by Aborigines after preparation.

Most Burny Beans found are jet black. Brindle patterns, reds and shades of brown are more rare.
         Entada phaseoloides - Matchbox Bean (seed)
A vigorous climber native to North QLD and pacific countries. Also called Gogo Vine (I prefer this name). The seeds are 5-7cm diameter and 1cm thick, they have a hard coat and this enables them to survive for many years at sea, washing around with the current before being washed up on beaches. For this reason they are also more generally known as Sea Beans, which include seeds from other genera such as Mucuna, Ipomoea and Canavalia. They are made into necklaces and jewellery, the common name of Matchbox Bean refers to their use many years ago as a matchbox.

Entada phaseoloides


Family

Mimosaceae

Botanical Name

Entada phaseoloides (L.) Merr.
Merrill, E.D. (1914) Philippine Journal of Science Section C. Botany 9: 86. Type: ?.

Synonyms

Entada scandens (L.) Benth., Hooker's Journal of Botany 4: 332(1841), Type: ?. Lens phaseoloides L. in O.Stickman, Herb. Amoin.: 18(1754), Type: Basd on desciption & plate of Faba marina Rumph. Herb. Amboin. 5: pl. 4 (1750).

Common name

Matchbox Bean; Vine, Gogo; Matchbox Bean; Elva Climber; Climber, Elva; Elva Climber; Vine, Go-go; Go-go Vine; Bean, Matchbox; Gogo Vine

Stem

Vine stem diameters to 18 cm recorded. Stems laterally compressed or flattened and twisted like a corkscrew. Vessels large, readily visible to the naked eye in transverse sections. Included bark segments pink. Pith eccentric, located much closer to one margin than the other in stem cross sections.

Leaves

Leaves bipinnate with about 8-16 leaflets, (two to four leaflets on each secondary axis) main rhachis projecting as a branched tendril beyond the leaf. Leaflet blades about 4-11 x 2.5-5.5 cm, leaflet stalks about 0.1-0.7 cm long, transversely wrinkled. Stipules linear, falcate, about 2-4 x 2 mm. Lateral veins forming loops well inside the blade margin. Scattered large clear glands visible to the naked eye in the leaflet blades, numerous smaller glands visible with a lens.

Flowers

Flowers +/- cup-shaped, about 1.5 mm diam. at the apex. Corolla pink to red on the outer surface, inner surface cream or translucent. Petals about 3 x 1-1.5 mm. Staminal filaments crumpled in the bud, filaments about 6-7 mm long at anthesis. Style crumpled in the bud. Ovules about 12.

Fruit

Fruits flattened, about 88-100 x 9-12 cm, constricted at intervals and divided into about 12 segments, each segment about 7 x 9-10 cm, surrounded by endocarp and falling from the pod leaving only the sutures of the pod attached to the vine. Exocarp shed by rolling up into rolls of tissue. Endocarp not hard, +/- leathery or like parchment. Seeds laterally compressed, about 5-6 cm diam. and 1-1.5 cm thick. Testa hard. Cotyledons hard, about 4.5-5.5 x 4.5-5 cm diam., fused around the margin. Radicle about 4 mm long.

Seedlings 

Features not available.


Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 100 m. Grows in beach forest, gallery forest, monsoon forest and lowland rain forest. Also occurs in New Guinea and other parts of Malesia, Asia and the Pacific islands.

Natural History

Food plant for the larval stages of the Tailed Green-banded Blue Butterfly. Common & Waterhouse (1981).
This species may have medicinal properties and has been used as a fish poison. (http://squid2.laughingsquid.net/hosts/herbweb.com /herbage/A9713.htm)
This species has been used medicinally in Malaysia, the Philippines and Java. The fruits are regarded as a contraceptive. Cribb (1981).



Monday, April 28, 2014

Lab Hours

Online research for assigned Beardsley Collection Items (1 hour)
Research on cataloging of items (1 hour)
Gave personal tour of Beardsley Exhibit to Prof. OBrien (1hour)
Went to library to research the American Indian Art magazine for blog posting (1 hour)

Repatriation

Item 1
History and Description of the Cultural Item(s)
    Between 1897 and 1928, one cultural item was removed from Wrangell, 
AK, by Fred W. Carlyon, a local shop owner. Carlyon and his sister, 
Anna Vaughn, collected the Shtax' Heen Kwaan Kaachadi Frog Hat during 
their time in Wrangell in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 
Later, the hat passed from the collectors to Dorothy K. Haberman, who 
was Miss Vaughn's daughter. Mrs. Haberman donated the hat to the 
Oakland Museum of California in 1959. The sacred object/object of 
cultural patrimony is a clan crest hat in the shape of a frog carved 
from wood and with copper overlay on formline. The eyes are overlaid 
with abalone and the hat is topped with five woven spruce root rings.
(FEDERAL NOTICE) 

Item 2

"Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: U.W. Department of Defense, 
Army corps of Engineers, Portland District, Portland, OR and University of 
Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, Eugene OR (October 21, 2008). 
In 1959, prior to construction of Washington's John Day Dam, eighty-five objects – including stone tools, shell and steatite beads – were removed from a prehistoric burial area. These were scheduled to be turned over to the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and/or the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation of Washington."
(American Indian Art, Vol.35(3):81, Summer 2010)

Item 3 
"Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN (august 24, 2007). The museum’s collections included twelve items purchased in 1958 and 1961 from two residents of Nett Lake Minnesota, including a loon-head drumstick, water drum, Midewiwin kit, some pouches and a rattle. These are "sacred objects," in other words, "specific ceremonial objects needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present-day adherents." the museum agreed to give these items to the Bois forte Band (Nett Lake) of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota." 

(American Indian Art, Vol.33(3):102, Summer 2008)

Comments:
I was really impressed by the American Indian Art magazine.  It is beautiful.  More practically, in the hunt for information for this weeks assignment I found it fascinating to read the repatriation information in several of the issues.  I also read a couple of the recommended readings, "NAGPRA at 20: Museum Collections and Reconnections", Martha Graham and Nell Murphy was particularly an interesting and thorough account of NAGPRA and three specific cases where items were repatriated or (in one case) access was allowed for ceremonial purposes.  Key in this article is the fact that a positive association is being formed between NAGPRA and the various tribal groups.  Although the tribal groups did not feel a "healing" was taking place they were all pleased that they had knowledge and access to their cultural and sacred objects.  It is well worth reading. Read the article and find out about the Tomanowos.