Guide to Searching the Oceanic Collections
Please note: Our site contains some images—like photos of deceased ancestors and sacred items—that may be sensitive, offensive, or otherwise difficult to see for some people. Please take caution when you are searching and reach out if you think there are images that should be taken off our public website.
Many of our collection records are still labeled according to the old terms from when they were collected or studied by scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—including broad terms like "South Seas" or "Polynesia." Many of these terms are no longer useful, appropriate, or correct. And some may be offensive or discriminatory. The Peabody Museum is committed to addressing these problems, but it can be a slow process with over 1.2 million materials in the collections. Our museum staff are continually updating these records, adding to and improving content. If you have questions, need assistance, or want to give us some suggestions, we'd be happy to hear from you. Reach out to us at hocef@peabody.fas.edu.
General Search
The simplest way to search or browse for collections is to enter search terms into the search toolbar at the top of the page. It functions similar to a google search- try entering an object name, a country, or a culture group. You can enter single terms or a combination. Similar to Google, if you want words to appear together, use quotations, e.g. "Marshall Islands." Entering just Marshall Islands without quotes will bring up records that have either Marshal or Islands in the record, not necessarily both.
If you know the specific collection object number, you can also enter that into the search toolbar to pull up its information. So if you've been checking out collections featured in the Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Harvard's Early Endeavors in Oceanic Anthropology exhibition and you want to look up the museum record for the wooden war club (sali) from Fiji, you can type the number from the image caption at the bottom of the object highlight, 61-8-70/3935, right into the search toolbar to find it.
Advanced Search
In general, we recommend sticking with the General Search since it is easy to use and will capture the most materials. But, if you would like to focus your search on a specific collection type, such as photographs, click "Advanced Search" on the lefthand menu.
This Advanced Search will allow you to combine different terms to find specific materials. The example below will show you all of the photographs from Samoa. It is worth noting that if you tried entering each of these combinations: samoa photo, samoa photograph, or samoa photographic, in the search toolbar instead, each of those will give you different results. So, the advanced search is best if you want to search only for photographs.
Search Terminology and Tips
This is where things get interesting! Problems with terms and language can make it hard to find things in our online database. Here's a list of a few things to keep in mind while you search.
Many of our collections came from time periods when colonial place names were used by museums and collectors. For example, New Hebrides was the colonial name for the islands that now form the nation of Vanuatu. If you search for Vanuatu in the search toolbar, you'll come back with 326 individual items, while if you search under its older colonial name of New Hebrides, you'll only see 235.
This record was updated in our
So, make sure you check multiple place names in your own search. If you want to know if we have something from Satawan Atoll, you might have to try different search terms like: Satawan, Nomoi, Mortlock Islands, Chuuk, Truk, Caroline Islands, or Micronesia. Items could be under any one of these names.
Since our museum collections are so large, not all of the information in our online database has been checked for errors over the years. Some incorrect details written decades ago still remain in our records.
Other collections haven't had someone with knowledge of the Pacific Islands reviewing them.
Check out this beautiful siapo. Since it was collected in the early 1900s in Fiji, our records had previously described it as a Fijian bark cloth (masi) but based on the design and other clues, it is most likely Samoan. Samoa has been added to this record, but similar scenarios likely exist throughout the collections.
We are working on adding indigenous terms for our collections- words like masi, kapa, ngatu, and siapo instead of bark cloth or tapa—but most our records use English words.
For example, this finely woven banana fiber dohr (sometimes spelled tur or tor) comes from Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. In the museum, we have several, some of which might be listed as a sash, belt, cloth, or girdle, documented as from the Caroline Islands or Micronesia.
In addition, some of those Western or English descriptions may not be common words or obvious to many of us today.
This taumi from Tahiti is labeled in our database as a "Tahaitian gorget." Is "gorget" the word you would have thought of when looking at this piece? Or searching for it? What would you have called it in English? Breastplate? Neck ornament? Breast ornament? Necklace? (Also notice that "Tahitian" is mispelled!)
Our collections were added to the museum over many years, by and from many people and reflect different people's ideas about them. One item may be labeled a canoe, while another similar one may be labeled as a boat, or watercraft, or sailing vessel.
For example, the museum cares for hundreds of mats woven from across the region, but early museum staff may not have known the difference between a Bwana money mat from Samoa, a Nieded clothin mat from the Marshall Islands, or a Whariki Takapau floor mat from Aotearoa/New Zealand. So terms like skirt, dress, garment, sash, girdle, cloak, blanket, sleeping mat, or floor mat may all be used (often incorrectly) to describe various woven mats in the collection. One record may call an 'ie tōga ceremonial mat from Samoa a "Pandanas mat garment" while another calls a similar piece a "Large fiber mat."
Notice the variety of terms used to describe these Fijian qato sici: it could be listed as a bangle, bracelet, armlet, jewelry, band, arm ornament. You may have to search with several of these words to find what you are looking for!
We are working on updating all of these collections. In the meantime, when you do your searching online, try a variety of old and new terms, locales, and spellings.
Catalog Numbers
Museums use catalog numbers to keep track of each individual collection piece. Each piece—whether an object, photograph, or historic letter—receives a unique number that is physically attached to the museum object and creates a link between it and its associated information (like location in storage, what it is, where it came from, and how it was acquired). For the Harvard Oceanic Collections Engagement Fellowship, applicants are required to identify which specific collections they will work with, by catalog number.
You can find the catalog number, also known as the Peabody Number, online either in your collections search list (in the example below, we searched for "tapa beater") or the individual collections page. In the below right example, the catalog number is 00-8-70/55302.
Still struggling to find what you're looking for?
Or just want some extra assistance?
We have staff to help! Send us an email and we'll do our best to answer your questions.