Trajectories of Human Skulls in Museum Collections

The preceding chapter described colonial headhunting in Timor as a circulatory system that interconnected European and indigenous societies. The ritual circuits of severed heads could empower the Portuguese and their allied Timorese communities. This close contact was also organized by boundaries of purity and dangers of pollution, and the Portuguese pragmatic principle of preservation of customs. Accordingly, severed heads as physical things were expected to circulate strictly within Timorese territories and to remain in the possession of Timorese communities. Thus, if the pace of colonial warfare in the nineteenth century increased and intensified the ritual circuits of decapitated heads, these tended to remain local, confined to the island. These ritual circuits, however, could be evaded, and severed heads re-networked in European circuits, outside of Timor. The following chapters of Part II will examine why and how that could succeed. This chapter initiates this inquiry with the analysis of two large consignments of Macanese and Timorese collections sent from Macao in 1880-82. The intention is to explain the travels of these collections as ‘trajectories’ of things attached to, or detached from, words. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Archaeology · Biology · Colonialism · Ethnology · Geography · Indigenous · Portuguese · Possession (linguistics) · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Ecology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Philosophy

• Shaping technology/building society

  John Law, Wiebe E Bijker•Shaping technology/building society•1992

  Incluir item

• Social organization of medical work

  Anselm L Strauss•Social organization of medical work•1997

  Incluir item

• The Piltdown Forgery

  J S Weiner, C Stringer•The Piltdown forgery•2003

  Incluir item

• On Being Authentic

  Charles Guignon•On Being Authentic•2004

  Incluir item

• The empire of things

  Fred R Myers•The empire of things•2001

  Incluir item

• Little Tools of Knowledge

  Peter Becker, William Clark•Little Tools of Knowledge•2001

  Incluir item

• In Search of Authenticity

  R F Bendix, Regina Bendix•In Search of Authenticity•2009

  Incluir item

• The cultural biography of objects

  C Gosden, Yvonne Marshall•World Archaeology•1999

  Incluir item

• Corresponding interests

  Open Access•Arthur Secord, Anne Secord•The British Journal for the…•1994

  Incluir item

• A Social History of Truth

  Steven Shapin•A Social History of Truth•1994

  Incluir item

• Sociologie et anthropologie

  Marcel Mau, Marcel Mauss•Sociología y antropología•2013

  Incluir item

• Mutual Tuning of Multiple Trajectories

  Open Access•Stefan Timmerman•Symbolic Interaction•1998

  Incluir item

• Observed Decay

  Open Access•Caitlin Desilvey•Journal of Material Culture•2006

  Incluir item

• The Head of the King

  Open Access•Edgar V Winans•Comparative Studies in Society…•1994

  Incluir item