Money in Glass Plates

"Without specific written documentation of historical photographs, interpretation of information presented within them is problematic."

By Ric Bolzan & Elizabeth Bonshek

Australian Natural History
VOLUME 23 NUMBER 4 AUTUMN 1990  

One of Percy Money's rare glass plate negatives of
“native girIs“ from Collingwood Bay in Papua New
Guinea, received by the Australian Museum in 1908.

 One of Percy Money’s rare glass plate negatives of ‘native girls’ from Collingwood Bay in Papua New Guinea, received by the Australian Museum in 1908.

We’ve all heard stories about unknown treasure being found in museum basements or archives. Well, this happened recently in the Australian Museum’s Photography Section where 14 rare glass plate negatives of ethno-historical significance were discovered recently during a routine inquiry. They depict ‘native girls’ from Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea, at the turn of the century and are part of a large number of photographs taken by Percy J Money, an Anglican lay missionary.

 There are several puzzling features of these glass plates. They were registered in the Photographic Resister in 1908, but there is no record of this donation in the Anthropology Section’s records. While it is not unusual that Photography should hold the negatives and record their accession in the Register, it is odd that there is no reference to these glass plate negatives in the archives of Anthropology.

By 1908 Percy Money had donated a considerable number of artefacts to the Australian Museum, complete with documentation. Because he had corresponded with the Museum for ten years while stationed at Wanigela in Colingwood Bay, the lack of information regarding the acquisition of these glass plates is notable.

Adding further to the mystery is the fact that there are variations in the conditions of the plates, indicating they had been separated at some stage, then reunited. The individual glass plates exhibit different types of physical deterioration yet they were all stored under the same conditions within the Museum. Seven have lifting and cracked emulsion, two have extensive mould growth, another two suffer from pin-holed emulsion and the rest have various combinations of these problems.

On his return to Sydney, Money offered for sale a set of 100 prints (including some taken from the newly discovered plates) to every major museum in Australia for ten pounds. In a letter to the Australian Museum he noted they were "particularly valuable as they are the only ones of this kind in existence, and it will not be long before European influence will affect native habits". Some sets were sold as prints and others in albums with hand-written captions. The Australian Museum bought a set, as did the Queensland Museum, the Museum of Western Australia, the South Australian Museum and the Mitchell Library. The Natural History Museum of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and the Bishop Museum, Hawaii, hold partial sets.

In his correspondence with the Museum, Money stated that he wanted to present a documentation of the daily and ritual life of people living in the Colingwood Bay area, capturing customs that were already dying out. His photographs show scenes of food preparation, hunting, fishing, pottery making, bark cloth making and mourning ceremonies. These photographs are a valuable source of ethnographic information. Not only because there were no other photographs made or cultural material collected from that region at that time, but also because of their high quality.

Percy Money (centre) documenting Collingwood Bay customs with the help
of a translator, Sem

Money carried out his task with notable respect for the people of the area. For example, he agreed to the decision of the elder men not to give him their sorcery objects, which were to be bunt on their conversion to Christianity. His Bishop was concerned that Money spent too much time collecting items and information for the Museum. He was directed to give the artefacts to the Church and to send only duplicates to the Museum. Money was concerned about this directive because he wanted his collection to be housed properly and researched scientifically. In his view the only place these aims could be achieved was in a museum. The glass negatives are especially valuable because all of Money’s negatives were thought to have been destroyed.

There are two theories regarding this loss. The first is that they were accidentally destroyed; the second that he destroyed the plates him- self. It was a known, although not common, practice at that time to destroy original negatives after the production of limited- edition prints. However, due to his concern for the future of artefacts he collected, it seems unlikely that he would have destroyed the negatives intentionally. Only 13 other negatives by Money are known to still exist; these are held in the South Australian Museum.

Without specific written documentation of historical photographs, interpretation of information presented within them is problematic. How representative are they, in this case, of the lifestyle they claim to illustrate? Despite the intention of the photographer to be objective, no photograph can be truly unbiased. The creation of a photograph is the product of the interaction between the photographer and the subject.

Four young girls in frontal view, showing facial tattoos and wearing body ornaments.
On closer inspection the tattoos appear to be painted over with a dark substance.
Without specific documentation we do not know whether this is standard practice or a
device used by Money to ensure they would show up in the photograph.

In the newly discovered plate illustrated here, for example, four young girls are seen in frontal view showing facial tattoos and wearing body ornaments. The tattoos appear to be overpainted with a dark substance that makes them stand out. But is this overpainting normal, or a device used by Money to ensure that they would be recorded by the photographic emulsion?

Considering the cost and effort of carrying heavy glass plates and associated equipment into remote areas, Money would surely have treated photographic sessions seriously. He would have taken as many precautions as necessary to achieve the result he wanted. The unusually formal composition indicates a considerable degree of cooperation, but what understanding did the girls have of the process or its complexity?

On another level, interpretation of these intriguing images is mediated by our own individual biases, experiences and knowledge. Just as Money's contemporaries focused on certain aspects, so do we. We may look at either the aesthetic, technical, ethnographic, botanic, erotic, photographic or political aspects. While individual cultural biases in interpretation do exist today, as they did in the past, these glimpses of a past lifestyle cannot be dismissed because of them. Rather we must recognise our own bias when we ‘read’ an image.

Material thought to be of marginal interest or value at one time takes on different values as the context in which it is viewed changes. The discovery of these glass plate negatives has added to the historical record, not only because of the images contained within them but also because they are now artefacts themselves. They form part of a historical record, not only of another culture but also of our own. The Australian Museum's responsibility as curators of this historic material will ensure accessibility and preservation for the future.

Suggested Reading:

Auld, L., I984. Body decoration and dress in Collingwood Bay. The Papua New Guinea photographs of P.J. Money. Masters thesis: Department of Art and Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Authors:
Mr Ric Bolzan is Manager of Photographic Services and the Archival Photographic Collection of the Australian Museum. The collection contains some of the earliest natural history photographs in the world and excellent collections of ethnographic images.

Miss Elizabeth Bonshek is currently working in the Anthropology Section of the Australian Museum, helping to sort and move the Pacific collection of artefacts. She is undertaking postgraduate studies at the University of Queensland on traditional designs of the Oro Province, Papua New Guinea.