Forty years ago, anthropologist Adrienne Kaeppler was working at Bishop Museum when she was challenged by a curatorial puzzle that launched her into a lifelong quest to determine the present day whereabouts and backstories of the artifacts of the Holophusicon, perhaps the most important museum in Europe in the late eighteenth century.
Including both traditional and contemporary arts, this book introduces the rich artistic traditions of the Pacific island chains of Polynesia and Micronesia, traditions that have had a considerable impact on western art in the twentieth century through the influence of artists such as Gauguin.
One of the first ethnographic studies of Hawai’i was by Eduard Arning. During his nearly three years in Hawai’i 1884-1886, he not only collected the 500 Hawaiian artefacts now in Berlin and presented in this publication, but also studied the customs of Hawaiians during the later part of the 19th century and especially their remembrances of times past. The Arning collection is one of the most important Hawaiian collections outside Hawai’i.
In the most comprehensive collection of information ever published on the performing arts of Oceania, 168 scholars in thirty countries and on every continent describe the music of the indigenous peoples of Australia, New Guinea, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia in forty in-depth articles.