A fascinating array of artefacts from the Samoa Islands in the Western Pacific has gone on display at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro.
The objects form part of a large donation to the museum by Mrs Barbara Joy Auld, from Chacewater, last year. Mrs Auld went to Samoa as a missionary in the 1940s and met her husband Francis there. When the couple left the islands to return to Britain, the assortment of handmade items were given to them by the people in the schools and churches they had worked in as farewell gifts.
The mini exhibition includes a bag woven out of coconut and pandanus leaves, which would have been used to carry a bible and a hymn book, a fan made out of feathers and woven pandanus leaf, which would have been used to keep cool during church services, European-style napkin rings, a carved wooden bowl, shell necklaces, a traditional weapon edged with shark's teeth and a ceremonial dancing knife. There are also some black and white photographs documenting Mrs Auld's time in Samoa.
"There has been no dedicated display of Pacific world cultures in the museum for a very long time so this display is something of a landmark event," said Suhashini Sinha, the museum's curatorial assistant for world cultures. "It complements another collection that was made by Miss Kitty Austin after her time as a missionary in Papua New Guinea during the 1970s and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of European and Christian influences in the Pacific Islands."
The exhibition will continue until 2 November. Entry to the Royal Cornwall Museum is free.
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