M0016053: Two Gope boards (Kwoi), New Guinea

Previous title, replaced March 2022: Gopi board, New Guinea./Previous title, replaced March 2022: Lanceolate Gopi board, New Guinea.

Photograph of two Gope boards, or Kwoi: wooden ritual objects that represent the spirits of ancestral heroes. Both boards feature human figures filled in in white. They were included in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum exhibition "Medicine of the Aboriginal Peoples in the British Commonwealth" held in 1952 and published in Catalogue of an exhibition illustrating the medicine of the aboriginal peoples in the British Commomwealth. They were purchased at auction by the Museum, the the smaller in 1933 and the larger in 1935. They were both accessioned in 1952 (accession numbers R1554/1952 and R1553/1952). They are not held by Wellcome Collection.

1957

1 photograph glass plate negative; 10.2 x 12.7 cm

Wellcome Collection holds the accession register which provides an entry for the items: accession numbers R1553/1952 and R1554/1952. It also holds the publication.

Copyright is held by Wellcome Collection

Catalogue data comes from a combination of entries in the original glass plate registers, metadata created when the glass plates were digitised in the early 2000s and enhancements made by the cataloguer in 2021.

Please consult the digitised version as this item is fragile. Email library@wellcomecollection.org to request access to the physical item.