The Oceanic collection

The Oceanic collection has a precise origin. On 19 September 1874, the geographer and naturalist Anthelme Thozet donated ten or so Australian artefacts collected in the field to the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Lyon (i.e. Lyon natural history museum). Today it features 1,600 artefacts from various selections, including rare and ancient items - Fijian clubs, Banaba hooks (Micronesia) or chief’s staffs, highlighting cultural continuity and change.

Beaten bark tapa cloths form an essential collection of around 50 items, mainly from Polynesia and New Caledonia. They illustrate the diversity of manufacturing techniques, themes and decors. Exchange values represent another reference set, including historical items, sometimes from prestigious collections. The items collected in Oceania by missionaries - mainly Marists - back in the second quarter of the 19^th century bear witness to everyday life during this period: clothing, navigation, hunting, combat, jewellery, demonstrations of power, spirituality, and diet. Next come contemporary Aboriginal paintings and three-dimensional works, the first of which were acquired in the 2000s; they evoke the permeability of the worlds and connection to the territories.