Pics from Exeter museum
 

Some pictures of lovely things in the Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, Devon, UK. This is a very nice small rural provincial county city museum. I have taken a few pictures with my TabletPC as I did not have a real camera with me so the pictures might not be the best. Also I did not have a pen and paper to take notes, and I am not smart enough to do that on my tablet. I only mention that because of the most interesting small knife with the wood scabbard case. This knife is from an Arctic or sub Arctic region of Alaska. The people are very similar to Inuit but do not live in quite the same frozen regions. What made look twice at this little knife is the magic mushroom carved scabbard cap, very cool. The other stuff is just nice to look at. So if you are in Devon you know somewhere to go.

Hi Tim,

Many thanks Tim! Love the knife and the scalloped club? where was that from?

Many years ago the curator there asked me to lend them some Mesolithic flint tools for a display, but bizarrely, Ive never visited the museum!

I will do now!

spiral

Most interesting items! and it seems that the knife in the first frame is likely to be from the Ainu people, who are a fascinating ethnic group of northern Japan, mostly Hokkaido.
In the latter 19th century the long standing contact between these eastern cultures and those on the North American continent flourished. The are profound similarities and influences from the Ainu in the American Indian cultures of the Haida in Alaskan regions and the Tlingit, as the major tribal groups.
We have had quite a few great discussions on Ainu weapons, and in looking at the clubs and some of the other pieces here there seems remarkable influences from Oceanic cultures in the Pacific.

A VERY NICE SELECTION OF CLUBS FROM NORTH AMERICA TO POLYNESIA, THE SCALLOPED CLUB BEING FROM THE COOK ISLANDS (SEE FORUM POST ON CLUBS FROM THERE) FIJI AND TONGA ALSO ARE REPRESENTED. THE SMALL KNIFE WITH MUSHROOMS DOES RESEMBLE THE SMALL AINU KNIFE BUT MAY BE FROM THE RUSSIAN SIDE UP SIBERIA WAY. THE RUSSIAN SHAMAN ARE NOTED FOR THEIR USE OF MAGIC MUSHROOMS FOR CEREMONIES THERE.

Thanks for the pics Tim ~ Some of these museums have incredible exibits !Thanks to Vandoo and Jim I have a reasonable idea of what these items actually represent... in fact as noted by Jim; AINU is massive at forum library and I suggest to members a detour and half an hour or so viewing those details into this amazing Ethnographic. :shrug:

Ibrahiim al Balooshi