MEB 134-424

Research by: Àlex Tejero Bonache
Institució dipositària: Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món (MuEC)
Nº inventari institucional: MEB 134-424
Breu descripció institucional: Wooden shield, Igorot (1972) Rectangular wooden shield, with two lower and three upper extensions. Faired, with curvilinear projections on the sides. The back of the shield has an excavated circular central area, leaving the handle free in the middle. Decoration: upper central extension with the carving of an anthropomorphic head (forehead covered by a skullcap, concave eyes, straight nose, excised mouth) and, in outline, an incised human figure. Linear incised decoration on the rims, on the curvilinear projections and in the central area, where there is also an incised human figure. Reed braiding at both ends of the shield, before the extensions. The artefacts from the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines held at the Museum of Ethnology and World Cultures in Barcelona appear under two different signatures (134 and 103). However, the former includes artefacts from other places, such as Japan.
Advertiment: Definition given in the institution's own inventories, which we do not necessarily share and which in some cases may be offensive or the result of prejudice.
Material: Wood / reed
Advertiment: Terms used by scientific and academic institutions to describe the material collections held by museums of ethnology, natural history or zoology, which overlook other non-Western forms of designation and classification. While we do not necessarily share these terms, we nevertheless use them in provenance research such as this.
Mesures: 108,4 x 30,0 x 3,0 cm
Mètode d’adquisició: Deposit
Advertiment: This refers to the process of acquisition of the object/specimen by the institution currently holding it, and not to the first transfer it underwent from its original context. If you have information that may be relevant to the provenance of the object/specimen, please write to comunicacio@traficants.org.

Lloc d'adquisició: Not recorded in the museum's inventories
Advertiment: Data extracted from the documentary collections of the institution, which may be erroneous or incorrectly transcribed. The historical toponymy (often of colonial origin) has been retained to give coherence to the research.
Place of production/origin: Bontoc, Philippines
Advertiment: Data extracted from the documentary collections of the institution, which may be erroneous or incorrectly transcribed. The historical toponymy (often of colonial origin) has been retained to give coherence to the research.
Collector: José Coronado Ladrón de Guevara
Advertiment: The personal or institutional names that appear, often associated with the colonial order, may be offensive or the result of prejudice. These references are used to give coherence to the research.
Donant: Board of Museums
Advertiment: The personal or institutional names that appear, often associated with the colonial order, may be offensive or the result of prejudice. These references are used to give coherence to the research.
Classification group: Peoples of the Cordillera region Igorot
Advertiment: Data extracted from the documentary collections of the institution, which may be erroneous or incorrectly transcribed, and which we do not necessarily share. We keep a terminology (tribe, people, ethnicity, race, country, etc.), created or manipulated during the colonial period, to give coherence to the research.
Holder of the legal property rights: Barcelona City Council
Advertiment: Reference is made to the holder of the rights recognized by the legal and juridical systems of the former colonial metropolises, regardless of the property rights that may emanate from the communities of origin.

Summary of results

The artefact MEB 134-424, which is inventoried as ‘Wooden shield, Igorot’, may have been taken from the battlefield as part of a punitive operation conducted by the Spanish Army against the settlements of Talvo (now Talboc), Guinisan and Ambajogan in present-day Ifugao province on 21 February 1888.

Chronological reconstruction of provenance

This artefact was probably seized as part of an operation to punish certain populations who were independent of the colonial administration, on 21 February 1888.

In August 1895, and probably earlier, the collection containing the artefact was already in Barcelona. Specifically, in the neighbourhood of Sant Gervasi, where the collector, José Coronado, lived. Between October and November of the same year, a technical commission sent by the Board of Museums of Catalonia examined the collection and, in this occasion, considered that it was not suitable for inclusion in Catalan museums. A year after the loss of the Philippine colony, and perhaps for that reason, it was accepted and finally deposited in the Museo Histórico Arqueológico in 1900.

In 1902, according to the statistical yearbook of the city of Barcelona, the collection was housed in the Museo de Arte Decorativo y Arqueológico, located in the Palacio Real (now the building of the Parliament of Catalonia); in 1903, in the Museo de Objetos Curiosos y Hechos Memorables; and, in 1907, in the Museo de Arte Decorativo y Arqueológico. These last changes were merely nominal, because in practice the artefacts remained in the same place, i.e., in the Ciutadella building.

In 1932, the Museo de Arte Decorativo was dismantled and the collections were divided between the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia (MAC) and the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) for their creation. The collection probably ended up in the latter, given the fact that documents relating to it—basically reports of artefacts—can still be found in the museum’s archives.

According to one of these reports, before 1941, the collections were transferred from the National Art Museum of Catalonia to the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona and the Museo Etnográfico. Although no ethnological or ethnographic museum is known to have existed at this time, according to the museum curators, the project already existed in the 1930s.

The artefacts probably remained in the storerooms of the Historical Archive until, before 1949, the Board of Museums transferred the collection to form the Ethnology Museum of Barcelona, where it remains to this day.

Estimation of provenance

The MEB 134-424 artefact comes from a punitive operation launched against the inhabitants of the settlements of Talvo, Guinisan and Ambajogan, in present-day Ifugao province, in February 1888. According to Jenks, the shields were made by the men of each village and were rarely bought or sold (Jenks, 1905: 124).

Possible alternative classifications

Hapio.

Complementary sources

Archives:

Archivo General Militar de Madrid (AGMM): AGMM, 5462.1

Bibliography:

Negociado de Estadística (1902). Anuari estadístic de la ciutat de Barcelona. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona. <http://hdl.handle.net/11703/94371>.

Negociado de Estadística (1907). Anuari estadístic de la ciutat de Barcelona. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona. <http://hdl.handle.net/11703/94376>.

Jenks, A. E. (1905). The Bontoc Igorot. Manila: Bureau of Public Printing. <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3308>.