Producer unknown to us
Necklace
Asia, Philippines, Mountain Province, Guinaang
Prior to 1888
Seashell fragments, textile, glass beads, string, woven, embroidered, tied
Hans Meyer
Donation to the museum by Meyer in 1888
SAs 02978
In 1882–83, Hans Meyer embarked on a trip around the world, which also took him to the Philippines. At the suggestion of Adolf Bastian, then director of the Royal Museum for Ethnology in Berlin, he researched the settlement area and life of the Igorot on the island of Luzon. Until then, museum researchers in Europe had little knowledge about the Igorot.
Hans Meyer bought the necklace (Ongòng) in the village of Guinaang. It is made of shell slabs that the local mountain people exchanged through intermediaries from the coastal population of the island. Since Meyer did not provide any information about the previous owners of any of the objects he purchased, we do not know anything about the specific history of the necklace or how it was previously used. The blue cloth strip to which the shell pieces were attached is a product that Guinaang residents bartered from other Igorot villages. The sewn-on red and white glass beads, on the other hand, came from Europe. Glass beads and pearl necklaces were also among the barter goods Meyer took for the regions where the Spanish peso was not accepted.
Dietmar Grundmann