BBC - A History of the World - Object : Bishop Patteson's Death Mask

Contributed by Nottingham City Museums and Galleries

Death mask depicting Bishop John Coleridge Patteson. © Nottingham City Museums and Galleries

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The island of Nukapu is one of the Disappointment Islands, named such in 1765 by British explorer John Byron.This death or portrait mask depicts Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, a Church of England missionary who was murdered in Nukapu, near Santa Cruz in New Ireland Melanesia on the 20th September 1871. Patteson was the bishop of Melanesia from 1861 to 1871.

Patteson was in Melanesia to spread the gospel and covert local natives to Christianity. However he was in the region at the same time as European traders were abducting islanders to provide cheap labour in British and other colonies. When the Bishop landed on Nukapu he was mistaken for a slave trader and was attacked and murdered. He was beaten over the head and when his body was returned on it were 5 hatchet wounds, supposedly in expiation for 5 Melanesians who were killed by traders.

This mask was made in New Guinea, Melaneisa and reflects how Europeans were seen by natives. It shows the conflicts that once existed and the mistrust that was rife.

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1. At 12:19 on 29 May 2010, John Pinder wrote:
I have discussed the commentary on the mask with my colleaqgues at the Melanesian Mission UK. This mask,it is stated,is from New Ireland,which was in the Diocese of Melanesia (as it then was) until that part of New Guinea was transferred to the then Diocese of New Guinea,now the Anglican Province of Papua New Guinea. New Ireland is one of the New Guinea Islands.
We are unaware of any early Anglican work in New Ireland.The mask appears therefore to be something of a mystery,and it would be good to know more about it's provenance. Bishop Patteson was certainly killed on the island of Nukapu,which is over a thousand miles south of New Ireland.We question whether he was mistaken as a slave-trader when he landed on the small island,as he was well known to the people already,and he was murdered by one man because he was the next white man to land on the island after five young men from there had been abducted (not killed) by traders.He was killed by a blow to the head,and
we have not heard of any hatchet wounds. Nukapu is in the Outer Reef Islands,part of the country of Solomon Islands in the Western Pacific,an area widely known as Melanesia,and now part of the Anglican Province of Melanesia.
Commodore John Byron did not find any of the Solomon Islands,and the islands he called "Disappoointment Islands"
appear to have been part of what is now French Polynesia,one island of which is called Napuka--over two thousand miles from Nukapu!There are five errors in your commentary but what is more serious is that we are deeply sceptical that the mask has anything to do with Patteson.
In the next few days we shall pursue this with Nottingham and the Cambridge University Museum of Archaelology and Anthropology. When we have more information we shall come back to the site.
John Pinder
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