May 5, 1904] 



NA TURE 



THE POPl'LARISATION OF ETHNOLOGICAL 

 MUSEUMS. 



SPEAKING broadly, museums may be divided into 

 two main classes, (i) those that are designed to 

 interest and instruct tlie general public, and (2) those 

 that are intended for specialists. Difficulties and mis- 

 understandings arise when these two objects are not 

 kept apart. The casual visitor is impressed, but 

 scarcely edified, by long series of named specimens, 

 and the specialist does not need popular descriptive 

 labels, but he does require a large number of speci- 

 mens. The problem that is now before most of our 

 large museums is the conflict of these two interests. 

 Probably the most satisfactory solution will be found 

 i.i keeping these two classes of collections quite apart. 

 Dr. F. A. Bather, in his suggestive and practical presi- 

 dential address to the Museums Association (}[useums 

 Journal, vol. iii., :qo3, pp. 71, 110), said, "the func- 

 tions of museums are three : Investigation, Instruction 

 and Inspiration appealing respectivel\- to the Specialist, 

 the Student, and the Man in the 

 Street. These functions are so 

 distinct that they are best carried 

 out if museums, or the collec- 

 tions of a single museum, be 

 classified on these lines. Such 

 an arrangement is a saving of 

 trouble and expense, and each 

 division can thus be directiv 

 adapted to the class of visitor^ 

 for which it is intended." 



The specialist needs all the 

 specimens he can get in a build- 

 ing where they can be safclv 

 housed and be readily accessible ; 

 he asks for facilities, not for 

 architecture. If once this were 

 fully realised a considerable 

 amount of unnecessary expendi- 

 ture could be saved. There arc- 

 many objects that should be pre- 

 served for future generations 

 which are neglected by museum 

 curators because they cannot 

 afford to store them, but there 

 would be less excuse for this 

 neglect if the cost of storage 

 could be greatly reduced. .\t 

 the Liverpool meeting of the 

 British Association Prof. Flinders 

 Petrie advocated the erection of 

 a repository for preserving an- 

 thropological or other objects ; an 



outline of his scheme was published in the Report. 

 1896, p. 935, and to the present writer it appears that 

 something of the kind will have to be adopted by 

 most countries, and the sooner this is done the better 

 will it be for science, as objects that should be pre- 

 served are continually perishing or are discarded from 

 lack of space in which to house them. 



The general public provides most of the funds for the 

 establishment and maintenance of museums, and it 

 may very well insist on having something for its money 

 that it can understand. A museum can be made into 

 an institution of very great educational value without 

 loss of attractiveness if some trouble be taken and if 

 funds are available, and it is very probable that funds 

 would be available if the results were such as could be 

 appreciated by evervone. Our Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington has set a fine example 

 of what can be accomplished in the way of well 

 mounted birds in their natural surroundings. Prob- 

 ably lack of space and funds has prevented the authori- 



NO. 1 80 1, VOL. 70] 



ties of the Natural History Museum from constructing 

 large groups of mammals similar to those which form 

 such a splendid feature of the Field Columbian 

 Museum of Chicago, and to a less degree _ of the 

 .\merican Museum of Natural History, New York. 



The pleasure and instruction afforded by t4ie realistic 

 mounting of groups of animals are undoubtedly very 

 great, and not less so are those caused by analogous 

 ethnological groups. The present writer had his first 

 interest in ethnology awakened by the excellent 

 modelled groups of natives in the Crystal Palace, and 

 the wonder and delight these gave to the small boy 

 have never been forgotten. Various museums at home 

 and abroad possess individual figures dressed _ in 

 appropriate costumes, but it is again to the United 

 States that w-e have to turn for the most effective 

 development of this art. There are several first class 

 groups of American natives in the American Museum 

 of Natural History, others are to be found in the 

 l-"ii-ld Columbian Museum ; especially noteworthy in 

 the latter museum are the groups illustrating the 



Fig. I. — A Cocopa Ind 



subsist largely by means oi 

 and fruits. They dwell in s 

 made of the inner bark of th 



igriculture, feeding partly o 

 attered settlements. The ir 

 willow. 



r Colorado River, Mexico. They 

 ,nd fish, with various seeds, roots 

 skins and the women petticoats 



rituals of the Hopi Pueblo Indians, to which the atten- 

 tion of the readers of Nature was directed a short time 

 ago (N.ATURE, vol. Ixvii., p. 392), and a wonderful case 

 illustrating the domestic industries of the Hopi. It 

 was once the writer's good fortune to be in the com- 

 pany of a couple of Navaho Indians who saw these 

 models for the first time; they could not m;isk the 

 interest they felt in seeing these representations of 

 their neighbours, and great was their delight in 

 noticing that the model of a particular woman, whose 

 face they recognised, had, like her original, an ampu- 

 tated finger. 



The high-water mark at present reached in this direc- 

 tion is in the dozen groups of lay figures designed by 

 Prof. \V. H. Holmes, and first exhibited in the Pan- 

 .American Exposition in Buffalo, 1901, to which refer- 

 ence has been made in these pages, and which are 

 now in the National Museum at Washington. These 

 groups present in the most striking manner possible 

 a synopsis of the .American aborigines, from the 



