1820s: the Beechey / Belcher collection

Much greater collections were made slightly later on the expedition of Captain Frederick William Beechey (1796-1856) to Northwest Alaska in 1826 and 1827. He, and his deputy Edward Belcher (1799-1877), made several important collections of Iñupiaq material culture (Figs 4 and 5). These were donated to a number of museums including the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Among other objects, they include a number of ivory drill bows, superbly engraved with animals and hunting scenes. In his journal, Beechey mentions a number of engraved tools that he purchased from Natives, probably Iñupiat, in Kotzebue Sound in July 1826. His fascination with these objects is apparent from his descriptions:

‘On the outside of [these] instruments there were etched a variety of figures of men, beasts and birds &c. with a truth and character which showed the art to be common among them. The reindeer [caribou] were generally in herds: in one picture they were pursued by a man in a stooping posture in snow-shoes; in another he had approached nearer to his game and was in the act of drawing his bow… and thus by comparing one with another a little history was obtained which gave us a better insight into their habits than could be elicited from any signs or intimations.’ (Beechey 1831, Vol 1: 251)

In 1861, Edward Belcher, who at the time retained his collection of Alaskan art and material culture, published an article about his collection. Entitled On the Manufacture of Works of Art by the Esquimaux , it includes observations on Iñupiaq material culture and technology, as well as reminiscences from his voyage to northwest Alaska.

During the 1860s researchers at the British Museum, including curator Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-97) and his amateur colleague, the businessman Henry Christy (1810-65; Fig. 6), began to investigate what became known as the Old Stone Age or Upper Palaeolithic in northern France. At that time, researchers looked to contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures to provide ethnographic parallels to those of the big game hunters whose remains were being excavated in France. Thus, the Museum's collections from Arctic hunting and gathering cultures, with their focus on sea mammal and caribou hunting, were of particular interest to them.