Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses

In Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses, Phillip Scorch encourages Kamalu de Preez and Marques Hanalei Marzan, two cultural advisors and specialists at Hawaiʻi’s Bishop Museum, to ‘have a conversation with a museum piece of their choice’ and to allow Scorch ‘to become part of it’ (50). Reading their reflections made me think about the many conversations I’ve had with pieces in museums and what they’ve said to me, what they’ve taught me, and what they’ve made me feel. In the Introduction to the book, I am quoted as calling an ʻahu ʻula and mahiole (a Hawaiian feathered cloak and helmet that belonged to one of our chiefs, Kalaniʻōpuʻu), a puʻuhonua, or a place of refuge and sanctuary (6). As a Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) living in Wellington, New Zealand, the feathered ‘things’ became my pieces of Hawaiʻi far away from home and therefore collectively transformed into a place of cultural safety for me, a place where I could converse with my ancestors in physical form, embodied in the intricate netting, knotting, and feather work.

Two unpublished photographic portraits of the American conchologist William Harper Pease (1824–1871)

A likeness of William Harper Pease, best known for his conchological exploration of the Hawaiian Islands, has remained unknown since his untimely death in 1871 at the age of 47. Recently, however, two photographic portraits of Pease have been identified in the archives of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu. The best of the two is a carte-de-visite of the typical size, showing Pease as a man in his mid- to late 30s, clean-shaven except for long, thick sideburns. Self-trained and highly motivated, Pease built an enormous collection of shells during his twenty years in the Hawaiian Islands, representing more than 4,000 species. Isolated though he was, he published 59 papers in reputable journals, describing and naming more than 500 species of mollusks.

Carved komari (vulva) stones from Rapa Nui: museum objects, legacy data and contemporary local history

The authors examine selected stone objects in the J.L. Young Collection, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Two were named by Young “Maea Momoa” (ma‘ea momoa; lit. ‘stone for chickens’). One of the ma‘ea momoa is a “pillow stone” (ŋarua) or basaltic beach cobble incised with komari (vulva motifs). The other is a “Bar of stone” lavishly embellished with similar motifs. Six other objects are said to be “fetish stones”. A possible ‘Orongo provenance for the incised “Bar of stone” is raised and tested, and toponymic and linguistic data are offered in support of a new interpretation of the origin of the hakatoro repe ‘elongation of the clitoris’ ritual and the function of one incised “fetish stone” in that process. This research calls attention to the traditional role of women in ‘Orongo ceremonies and employs relatively obscure museum collection objects and their previously overlooked documentation, thus uniting multiple data strands to reveal new details of Rapanui ritual life.

Gastrointestinal nematodes of Paramelomys levipes and P. mollis (Rodentia: Muridae) from Papua, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea with the descriptions of three new genera and nine new species (Nematoda)

Nematodes from four families comprising 18 species identified to species level, six to subfamily level as well as larval and adult heligmonellids and juvenile females of an undetermined family were recovered from eight individuals of Paramelomys levipes and 27 individuals of P. mollis (Muridae: Murinae: Uromys Division) from Papua New Guinea and Papua, Indonesia. Originally all the hosts were registered as P. levipes in the Australian and Bishop museum collections, but the probable identity of the host individuals was decided according to the altitude of the collection sites. A capillariid, Capillaria s. l., a putative species of the Nippostrongylinae and a small number of male and female nippostrongylins could not be identified further. The spirurid Protospirura kaindiensis had been previously reported from Sahulan Old Endemic fauna. The oxyurid Syphacia (Syphacia) dewiae n. sp. differed from all its congeners in having an oval laterally extended cephalic plate with a dorso-ventral constriction, cervical and lateral alae, a female tail up to 1400 long and a spicule up to 102 long. The remaining species, all heligmonellids included the brevistriatin Macrostrongylus ingens and 14 nippostrongylin species. Of these Hughjonestrongylus amplicauda, H. mirzai, H. singauwaensis, and Odilia mackerrasae had been reported previously in species of Paramelomys. Species of Flannerystrongylus and Parasabanema, possibly new species, could not be described further. Flannerystrongylus chisholmae n. sp., a smaller worm, differed from its congener F. abulus in having a spicule to body length ratio of 13.2% and only 6 eggs in utero. Helgenema keablei n. gen., n. sp. differed from the 44 nippostrongylin genera known to date in having a synlophe of 11– 15 small ridges and a left cuticular dilatation supported anteriorly by a single large ridge. Paramelomystrongylus dessetae n. gen., n. sp. differed from all other nippostrongylin genera in having a synlophe of 13–16 ridges with a type A carene supported by 2 hypertrophied ridges and the right lateral ridges larger than the dorsal and ventral ridges. Parasabanema sene n. sp. differed from its congener, P. szalayi, in having a synlophe of 30 ridges. Hughjonestrongylus alisoni n. sp., H. arfakiensis n. sp., H. digianiae n. sp. and H. spratti n. sp. were distinguished from all other species of Hughjonestrongylus and each other by a combination of characters including the number of synlophe ridges, 28, 21–26, 20–23, 22–25 respectively, in the mid body, spicule length, proportions of the ovejector and shape of the female posterior end. The combined helminth assemblage was dominated by heligmonellids, as has been reported for other paramelomys, with eight species as well as the oxyurid being unique to P. levipes and P. mollis. Overlapping of host habitat could account for the similarities of the nematode assemblages recorded for those species of paramelomys that have been studied.

Some leptothecate hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from Hawaii, mostly from inshore and nearshore waters

This report is based on a small collection of hydroids from the Hawaiian Islands, in the central Pacific Ocean. Most of the examined material was obtained by staff of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, during surveys for nonindigenous marine species in shallow, sheltered, inshore or nearshore waters, and especially in harbours, bays, and lagoons. In all, 34 species of leptothecate hydroids, assigned to 14 families and 20 genera, were identified and are discussed. One of them, based on a single infertile colony with a damaged hydrotheca, was identified provisionally only to the rank of suborder. Given the limited geographic and bathymetric focus of the surveys, only four of the species, Clytia thornelyi, Halecium sibogae, Macrorhynchia balei, and M. hawaiensis, were collected at depths greater than 25 m. Seven species, Cirrholovenia tetranema Kramp, 1959, Orthopyxis crenata (Hartlaub, 1901), Clytia elongata Marktanner-Turneretscher, 1890, C. paulensis (Vanhöffen, 1910), Tridentata maldivensis (Borradaile, 1905), Monotheca flexuosa (Bale, 1894), and a hydroid identified only as Eirenida (undetermined), are recorded from Hawaii for the first time. Three others, Lytocarpia nigra (Nutting, 1905) Macrorhynchia balei (Nutting, 1905), and M. hawaiensis (Nutting, 1905), have their type localities in Hawaii, with the last of these being known to date only from the Hawaiian archipelago. Most of the species are well-known from shallow water areas across the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific region, and over half of them have been reported as well from warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean. Their existence in the remote islands of Hawaii is attributed to long-range dispersal by both natural and human-mediated means, including shipping.

Salting Out: A Simple and Reliable Method to Distinguish Between Common Fluid Preservatives and Estimate Alcohol Concentration

This paper details the salting-out method, which uses the salts potassium carbonate and sodium chloride to distinguish between the three most commonly used fluid preservatives: ethanol, isopropanol, and formalin. A summary of other methods to identify fluid preservative type and a review of the salting-out method published by Mayfield (2013, Distinguishing between ethanol and isopropanol in natural history collection fluid storage, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, https://spnhc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Mayfieldfinalwithtablechanges.pdf) are provided. A new salting-out method is presented, which requires a small fluid sample (2–4 ml). It is simple, quick, and relatively inexpensive to implement, making it a viable method to distinguish between common fluid preservatives. The materials and equipment for the salting-out test cost just over $100 US, and tests take approximately 3 minutes per container. Results of testing on known concentrations and combinations of ethanol, isopropanol, and formalin (a solution of formaldehyde in water) and on samples of fluid preservatives from specimen containers in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum collections are presented. The results of salting-out tests have been verified by direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) (Cody et al., 2005, Versatile new ion source for the analysis of materials in open air under ambient conditions, Analytical Chemistry 77(8):2297–302), which confirmed the results of salting-out tests but also highlighted some limitations, particularly when combinations of fluid preservative are encountered.