Preface Introduction: A Bridge to America: Count Paolo Andreani and His Journal Journal 1790, by ... more Preface Introduction: A Bridge to America: Count Paolo Andreani and His Journal Journal 1790, by Paolo Andreani -From New York to King's bridge -[King's Bridge to Albany] -Of the City of Albany -From Albany to the Six Nations -Of Oneida -Of the Tuscaroras -Of the Onondagas -From Albany to the Mineral Springs near Saratoga -Of the Valley of New Lebanon, Of the Mineral springs, and of the Quakers called Shakers -Of the Town of Udson -Of West Point Epilogue: "An Incredible Number of Enemies": The Betrayal of Paolo Andreani Appendix: Letters, 1790-1791 Index
Personaggio irrequieto, primo aeronauta italiano, appassionato cultore dei viaggi e delle esplora... more Personaggio irrequieto, primo aeronauta italiano, appassionato cultore dei viaggi e delle esplorazioni, della ricerca e della sperimentazione scientifica sul campo, quello di Paolo Andreani, figlio della Milano dei Lumi di fine Sette-cento, è un nome ancora poco ...
This article examines some significant yet little-known early anthropological achievements in Ita... more This article examines some significant yet little-known early anthropological achievements in Italy. These include the world's first museum of anthropology, founded in 1869 by Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910) at Florence (Firenze), Italy, where that same year he also established Italy's (and the world's) first "cattedra" (university professorship) of anthropology. Mantegazza sought to develop a unified "science of man," with a broad definition of the new discipline that brought together human physiological, ethnographic, and "comparative psychology" collections within his new anthropology museum, later complemented by a companion "psychological" museum. Even though Mantegazza's Florentine school of anthropology ended under Fascism, today the surviving Museum of Anthropology in Florence is still the repository of important ethnographic collections from early Italian traveler-explorers and other contributors. Their study was an important component of Mantegazza's science, which is receiving new attention by modern Italian anthropologists.
This paper revisits and reassesses two enigmatic archival photographs taken in the 1890s showing ... more This paper revisits and reassesses two enigmatic archival photographs taken in the 1890s showing Japanese katana, or samurai swords, in situ with American Indians in the northern Great Plains. Both have been published, correctly presented as enticing unexplained oddities in nineteenth-century Indian possession. The katana seen hanging on a wall of the home of Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota), which we believe was photographed in November or early January of 1890 (fig. 1), was first discussed in print by Bleed (1987). The second photograph (fig. 2) shows a katana held by Dog Child of the Blackfoot (Siksika) tribe, formerly a scout for the North-West Mounted Police (later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), photographed in c. 1890–1894 at Gleichen, Alberta, and first discussed by Drew (1980). We attempt here to provide context and likely explanations for the presence of samurai swords in these two only known nineteenth-century in situ American Indian contexts. For that purpose, we first briefly survey the much broader diffusion and integration of the (largely Euro-American) sword—called “long knife” in many North American Indian languages—within American Indian cultures. We then look at possible Japanese sources for these swords and the resulting implications.
Overshadowed by the immense cultural patrimony of Italy, within its extensive museum systems, man... more Overshadowed by the immense cultural patrimony of Italy, within its extensive museum systems, many historically significant nineteenth-century Italian ethnographic collections from non-western peoples have remained ‘dormant’ and largely unknown to museum scholars until recently. The world’s first ‘museum of anthropology’ was founded in Florence, in 1869. By then Italian explorers and collectors had already assembled extensive collections that may be considered ‘proto-ethnographic’. This paper reassesses two exemplary proto-ethnographic collections by Giacomo Costantino Beltrami (1779–1855) from the Upper Mississippi region, and by Antonio Spagni (1809–1873) in the Upper Missouri River basin. In recent years, largely outside Italy, new uses for legacy museum collections have arisen. This has in turn had a strong effect on the organizational structures and approaches of Italian museums to their historic ethnographic collections.
Original (online) publication date: December 7, 2018. Print publication: Journal of the History of Collections 32(1):49-62 (March 2020). See note printed at bottom of first page: "doi:10.1093/jhc/fhy056 Advance Access publication 7 December 2018"
AUTHORS' NOTE for academia.edu readers: This paper was originally envisioned to include the "proto-ethnographic" Asian collections of Enrico di Borbone (Venice) and Edoardo Chiossone (Genoa) but, partly due to space limitations, we now intend to further develop those examples in a separate paper later.
Preface Introduction: A Bridge to America: Count Paolo Andreani and His Journal Journal 1790, by ... more Preface Introduction: A Bridge to America: Count Paolo Andreani and His Journal Journal 1790, by Paolo Andreani -From New York to King's bridge -[King's Bridge to Albany] -Of the City of Albany -From Albany to the Six Nations -Of Oneida -Of the Tuscaroras -Of the Onondagas -From Albany to the Mineral Springs near Saratoga -Of the Valley of New Lebanon, Of the Mineral springs, and of the Quakers called Shakers -Of the Town of Udson -Of West Point Epilogue: "An Incredible Number of Enemies": The Betrayal of Paolo Andreani Appendix: Letters, 1790-1791 Index
Personaggio irrequieto, primo aeronauta italiano, appassionato cultore dei viaggi e delle esplora... more Personaggio irrequieto, primo aeronauta italiano, appassionato cultore dei viaggi e delle esplorazioni, della ricerca e della sperimentazione scientifica sul campo, quello di Paolo Andreani, figlio della Milano dei Lumi di fine Sette-cento, è un nome ancora poco ...
This article examines some significant yet little-known early anthropological achievements in Ita... more This article examines some significant yet little-known early anthropological achievements in Italy. These include the world's first museum of anthropology, founded in 1869 by Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910) at Florence (Firenze), Italy, where that same year he also established Italy's (and the world's) first "cattedra" (university professorship) of anthropology. Mantegazza sought to develop a unified "science of man," with a broad definition of the new discipline that brought together human physiological, ethnographic, and "comparative psychology" collections within his new anthropology museum, later complemented by a companion "psychological" museum. Even though Mantegazza's Florentine school of anthropology ended under Fascism, today the surviving Museum of Anthropology in Florence is still the repository of important ethnographic collections from early Italian traveler-explorers and other contributors. Their study was an important component of Mantegazza's science, which is receiving new attention by modern Italian anthropologists.
This paper revisits and reassesses two enigmatic archival photographs taken in the 1890s showing ... more This paper revisits and reassesses two enigmatic archival photographs taken in the 1890s showing Japanese katana, or samurai swords, in situ with American Indians in the northern Great Plains. Both have been published, correctly presented as enticing unexplained oddities in nineteenth-century Indian possession. The katana seen hanging on a wall of the home of Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota), which we believe was photographed in November or early January of 1890 (fig. 1), was first discussed in print by Bleed (1987). The second photograph (fig. 2) shows a katana held by Dog Child of the Blackfoot (Siksika) tribe, formerly a scout for the North-West Mounted Police (later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), photographed in c. 1890–1894 at Gleichen, Alberta, and first discussed by Drew (1980). We attempt here to provide context and likely explanations for the presence of samurai swords in these two only known nineteenth-century in situ American Indian contexts. For that purpose, we first briefly survey the much broader diffusion and integration of the (largely Euro-American) sword—called “long knife” in many North American Indian languages—within American Indian cultures. We then look at possible Japanese sources for these swords and the resulting implications.
Overshadowed by the immense cultural patrimony of Italy, within its extensive museum systems, man... more Overshadowed by the immense cultural patrimony of Italy, within its extensive museum systems, many historically significant nineteenth-century Italian ethnographic collections from non-western peoples have remained ‘dormant’ and largely unknown to museum scholars until recently. The world’s first ‘museum of anthropology’ was founded in Florence, in 1869. By then Italian explorers and collectors had already assembled extensive collections that may be considered ‘proto-ethnographic’. This paper reassesses two exemplary proto-ethnographic collections by Giacomo Costantino Beltrami (1779–1855) from the Upper Mississippi region, and by Antonio Spagni (1809–1873) in the Upper Missouri River basin. In recent years, largely outside Italy, new uses for legacy museum collections have arisen. This has in turn had a strong effect on the organizational structures and approaches of Italian museums to their historic ethnographic collections.
Original (online) publication date: December 7, 2018. Print publication: Journal of the History of Collections 32(1):49-62 (March 2020). See note printed at bottom of first page: "doi:10.1093/jhc/fhy056 Advance Access publication 7 December 2018"
AUTHORS' NOTE for academia.edu readers: This paper was originally envisioned to include the "proto-ethnographic" Asian collections of Enrico di Borbone (Venice) and Edoardo Chiossone (Genoa) but, partly due to space limitations, we now intend to further develop those examples in a separate paper later.
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Original (online) publication date: December 7, 2018. Print publication: Journal of the History of Collections 32(1):49-62 (March 2020). See note printed at bottom of first page: "doi:10.1093/jhc/fhy056 Advance Access publication 7 December 2018"
AUTHORS' NOTE for academia.edu readers: This paper was originally envisioned to include the "proto-ethnographic" Asian collections of Enrico di Borbone (Venice) and Edoardo Chiossone (Genoa) but, partly due to space limitations, we now intend to further develop those examples in a separate paper later.
Original (online) publication date: December 7, 2018. Print publication: Journal of the History of Collections 32(1):49-62 (March 2020). See note printed at bottom of first page: "doi:10.1093/jhc/fhy056 Advance Access publication 7 December 2018"
AUTHORS' NOTE for academia.edu readers: This paper was originally envisioned to include the "proto-ethnographic" Asian collections of Enrico di Borbone (Venice) and Edoardo Chiossone (Genoa) but, partly due to space limitations, we now intend to further develop those examples in a separate paper later.