MEB 134-595

Research by: Àlex Tejero Bonache
Institució dipositària: Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món (MuEC)
Nº inventari institucional: MEB 134-595
Breu descripció institucional: Wooden shield, Igorot (1972) Rectangular wooden shield, with two lower and three upper extensions. Faired, the shield has a large central prominence and curvilinear projections on the sides. The back of the shield has an excavated central area, leaving the handle free in the middle. Decoration: black striped extensions, the rest of the shield painted black except for the curvilinear projections, which are ochre (2024). 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: 100,5 x 31,0 x 1,0 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: Mountain
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: Not recorded in the museum's inventories
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: Igorot (1972) 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

This is a shield that can be aesthetically and stylistically attributed to the Bontok people. Although it has not been possible to determine when and under what circumstances the artefact MEB 134-595 was collected, we can speculate that it may be part of a spoil of war. This is given the context of military interventionism practised by the Spanish administration in Bontok itself during the historical period in which the collector, an officer in the army and the Civil Guard, was stationed there. This object was collected between the time of his arrival on 25 December 1882 and, probably, the holding of the Philippines Exhibition in 1887.

* This artefact does not appear in the museum inventories as part of the José Coronado collection.

Chronological reconstruction of provenance

The first record we have of this shield is in the Catalogue of the Philippines Exhibition held in the Retiro Park in Madrid during the summer of 1887. It could be one of the two artefacts listed in the exhibition catalogue under the category ‘Two rondaches of id. [Bontoc]’ (Catalogue: 278). After the event, many of the artefacts remained in the Museo Biblioteca de Ultramar until it was closed in 1896, but this was probably not the case with the collection of which this artefact is a part, as it probably made its way to Barcelona after the exhibition was closed. The Museo Biblioteca de Ultramar was installed in the Palacio de la Minería, where these pieces were displayed during the exhibition. According to the museography of the Museum of Ethnology and World Cultures of Barcelona, the collection in which the artefact is included was exhibited during the 1888 Barcelona Universal Exposition, although there is no evidence of this and it is possibly an error.

In August 1895, the collection containing the artefact was without doubt already in Barcelona. Specifically, in the neighbourhood of Sant Gervasi, where the collector 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

It is not possible at this stage to determine the time and specific circumstances in which artefact MEB 134-595 was collected. Based on aesthetic criteria, we can associate it with those used in the territory of the present-day Mountain Province, although similar shields were also used in other settlements today differentiated by the political organization of the territory. 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

Kalasag, Hapio.

Complementary sources

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>.

Exposición General de las Islas Filipinas (1887). Catálogo de la exposición general de las Islas Filipinas celebrada en Madrid… el 30 de junio de 1887. Signatura: AHM/633416. Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional de España.

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