A Day in the Life 



Of the A. B. Lewis Project: 



The Legend Lives 



New Guinea photos by A. B. Lewis 

 Present-day lab photos by June Bartlett 



In the spring of 1909, Albert B. Lewis, then assistant 

 curator of Melanesian ethnology at Field Museum, set 

 off on a research odyssey to Melanesia that would keep 

 him overseas for nearly four years. 



By the time he returned to Chicago in 1913, Lewis 

 had collected more than 12,000 artifacts for Field 

 Museum, including masks, carvings, and other ritual 

 objects, as well as bowls, knives, headrests, pots, and 

 clothing used in daily life. Lewis acquired many exam- 

 ples of the same kinds of artifacts to illustrate the rich 

 variety he observed in the designs and forms of Mela- 

 nesian objects. 



Today, using modern research methods and tech- 

 nology, we are reexamining this world-renowned col- 

 lection brought back to Chicago more than 75 years 

 ago. The research directors of the A. B. Lewis project. 

 Research Associate Robert L. Welsch and Curator 

 John E. Terrell, are attempting to unravel how trade 

 and communication using outrigger canoes influenced 

 people's lives on New Guinea's north coast. Since 

 January, the A. B. Lewis Memorial Laboratory at Field 

 Museum has witnessed constant activity: studying the 

 collection, photographing artifacts, and preparing for 

 field work in Papua New Guinea by Welsch and Terrell 

 later this year. 



Other members of the project's research team are 

 Deborah Beckles, James Coplan, Ralph Cowan, 

 Josephine Faulk, Ann Gerber, Barbara Hsiao, Phillip 

 Lewis, Abigail Mack, Sam Mayo, John Nadolski, and 

 Caroline Price. Funding for the project has come from 

 Field Museum, the Thomas J. Dee Fund, Walgreen 

 Company, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 

 Northwestern University, the National Science 

 Foundation, and private donors. 



Photos (clockwise from right): James Coplan compares regional de- 

 signs on bone daggers and rests: Josephine Faulk and Robert 

 Welsch map trade networks: washing sago, Sissano, 1909: 

 Josephine Faulk, Caroline Price, and Abigail Mack compare motifs 

 on carved bone daggers: John Nadolski, Robert Welsch, and 

 Barbara Hsiao analyze computer data: man adorned for dance, 

 Sisimongum, 1910. 



New Guinea photos 31862, 31880, 33508 Bartlett photos GN85336 



