Drawing to Tell Versus Drawing to Intrigue?

The article “Drawing It Out” by Haidy Geismar (2014) in Visual Anthropology Review (Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 97–113) focused on the use of images in early anthropology. The drawings by Arthur Bernard Deacon (1903–1927), which he made during his field studies in Vanuatu, New Hebrides from 1926 until his sudden death caused by blackwater fever in 1927, are the starting point of Geismar’s inquiry. The author discusses Deacon’s drawings and infers the potential of drawing as a methodology for anthropology. Deacon was a young PhD candidate who was sent to Vanuatu from the University of Cambridge. It was his intention to continue the studies of the indigenous culture of the New Hebrides at the time, which had been started by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. In contrast to his expectations, Deacon found a culture in the process of decay. The subject of his study, the indigenous culture, had been threatened by diseases and cultural influences that settlers, missionaries, and traders imported with them since they landed in the middle of the nineteenth century. Deacon described the impossibility of protecting the indigenous culture and critically reflected on his role as an anthropologist (Geismar 2014, p. 102).

G Vernon Davies: unsung pioneer of old age psychiatry in Victoria

Objective: To provide a biography of G Vernon Davies who took up a career in old age psychiatry in 1955 at the age of 67 at Mont Park Hospital in an era when there few psychiatrists working in the field. Conclusion: In the 1950s and 1960s, Vernon Davies worked as an old age psychiatrist and published papers containing sensible practical advice informed by contemporary research and experience, broadly applicable to both primary and secondary care, presented in a compassionate and empathetic manner. His clinical research in old age psychiatry resulted in the first doctoral degree in psychiatry awarded at the University of Melbourne at the age of 79. Before commencing old age psychiatry, he served in the Australian Army Medical Corps as a Regimental Medical Officer and received the Distinguished Service Order. He spent 3 years as a medical missionary in the New Hebrides before settling at Wangaratta where he worked as a physician for over 30 years. He contributed to his local community in a broad range of activities. Vernon Davies is an Australian pioneer of old age psychiatry.

Fear of a cannibal island: Colonial fear, everyday life, and event landscapes in the Erromango missions of Vanuatu

Archaeological landscapes of colonial encounter were shaped to varying degrees by mutual mistrust, misunderstanding, anxiety, and the inherent terror of frontier violence. In the mission encounters of Island Melanesia, the colonial trope of “cannibalism” added a particular tinge to these fears of the colonized other. Mythologies of cannibalism both repulsed and motivated Christian missionaries who were led to places such as Erromango in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). Cannibalism as a practice was rare or even non-existent in these encounters, but it remained part of the European imaginary of the region. Several highly-publicized missionary martyrdoms on Erromango between 1839–1872 remain important to local social memories enacted in place. At the same time, there is a backdrop of relatively peaceful everyday life for missionary families as revealed by the archaeological record of mission houses. The structural and actual violence perpetrated by Europeans in missions and other colonial encounters are historically and currently underemphasized.

Hydrozoans, scyphozoans, larvaceans and ctenophores observed in situ at hadal depths

Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa, Larvacea (Appendicularia) and Ctenophora are not typically associated with hadal communities. Here, we report observations of these groups based on 136 benthic camera lander deployments that spanned all five oceans, encompassing 14 deep sites, culminating in >1000 h of video in the near-bottom waters between 5000 and 10 925 m. Of the Hydrozoa, trachymedusae had a maximum depth of 9066 m in the Mariana Trench, narcomedusae were recorded to a maximum depth of 7220 m in the San Cristobal Trench and a single siphonophore was seen at 7888 m in the Mariana Trench. Scyphozoans were seen as deep as 6898 m in the New Hebrides Trench. The deepest ctenophore was seen at 6037 m in the Kermadec Trench. Larvaceans were seen in the Agulhas Fracture Zone and the Puerto Rico, Kermadec, South Shetland and Java trenches, with the deepest being 7176 m in the Java Trench. None of these groups were seen in the deep Arctic or Antarctic deeper than 6000 m. Narcomedusae, siphonophorae, Scyphozoa and Ctenophora appear very rare at hadal depths, while the larvaceans and trachymedusae appear to be relatively conspicuous in the benthopelagic at hadal depths.

‘Record of my journeyings in the Coral Sea’: Randolph Bedford’s 1906 album of the Solomon Islands

Albums and scrapbooks are rarely the focus of research. This article examines the motivation and context for a unique and rare album compiled by a ‘special correspondent’ – George Randolph Bedford, an aspiring Federal politician, journalist and writer – who visited the Solomon Islands in 1906 on a personal fact-finding mission. His scrapbook contains 212 photographs and a series of articles on the Solomon Islands that he had published in illustrated weekend newspapers in Australia in 1906 and early 1907. The Australian colonies had just federated, Britain had just passed control of Papua to Australia and, in the New Hebrides, Britain and France were about to announce a condominium had been formed. Tonga, Niue and the Cook Islands were also the subject of imperial manoeuvring. In Queensland, Kanakas were being sent home as the labour trade was abolished. The scrapbook is therefore a window on to imperial diplomacy, colonial expansion and Australian visions of a relationship with the Pacific, the boom in illustrated newspapers, early photography and personal ambition to become an expert on the islands.

Lithosphere deformation due to tearing at STEPs: an analogue model approach

<p>Tearing of the lithosphere at the lateral end of a subduction zone is a consequence of ongoing subduction. The location of active lithospheric tearing is known as a Subduction-Transform-Edge-Propagator (STEP), and the tearing decouples the down going plate and the part of the plate that stays at the surface. STEPs can be found alongside many subduction zones, such as at the south Caribbean or the northern end of the Tonga trench. Here we investigate what controls the evolution and geometry of the lithospheric STEP. Furthermore we study the type of lithosphere deformation in the vicinity of STEPs.</p><p> </p><p>We study the ductile tearing in the process of STEP evolution by physical analogue models, which are dynamically driven by the buoyancy of the subducting slab. In our experiments, the lithosphere as well as asthenosphere are viscoelastic media in a free subduction setup. A stress-dependent rheology plays a major role in localization of strain in tearing processes of lithosphere such as slab break-off. Therefore we developed and tested analogue materials that can serve as mechanical analogues for the stress-dependent lithosphere rheology, such as has been inferred by rock laboratory test for dislocation creep of olivine.</p><p> </p><p>We show the influence of age and integrated strength of the lithosphere and its contrasts across the passive margin, on the timing, depth, and the degree of localization of the tearing process. When tearing of the lithosphere is dominated by ductile deformation, we find that gradual necking of the passive margin precedes tearing. In many of our models we find that tearing at the lateral ends of the subduction zones is resisted by the lithospheric strength, such that tearing is delayed with respect to rollback of the slab. This has consequences for the shape of the subduction zone, and for the separation between the subducted slab and the surface lithosphere. We study the type of deformation in the vicinity of the STEP of the lithosphere that stays at the surface, and relate this to deformation observed <span>beside STEP fault zones along the Hellenic slab, the Lesser Antilles slab, and the New Hebrides slab. </span></p>