MUSEUM Spotlight 84 FIG. 19: False Face Society mask. Iroquois, Great Lakes, Canada. Early 19th century. Wood, vegetal fiber, hair, metal, leather. H: 30 cm. Donated by Jules Pictet to the Musée Académique in 1825. MEG Inv. ETHAM K000130. and boreal and beluga whales (fig. 15), a cetacean charm for an umiak (fig. 16), and a whale-shaped charm inlaid with blue beads (fig. 17). The exploration of the cultural and artistic universe of a variety of North American peoples continues through sometimes astonishingly old works like a Crow Indian vest (fig. 18). Also particularly early are an Iroquois mask and a snapping turtle rattle, both part of False Face Society paraphernalia (fig. 19). Following these are displays devoted to the power and religious ideology of the Pre- Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica, including those of the Maya and the Aztec. Presentation of the Amazonian collection comes next, and this is among the MEG’s most important, due not only to the diversity of the cultures and provenances it represents, but to the ethnographic significance and aesthetic qualities of the works of which it is made up. It includes pieces collected by curators René Fuerst and Daniel Schoepf, as well as by Flemish ethnologist and Kayapo specialist Gustaaf Verswijver (fig. 21). The Americas section ends with a presentation of objects from Pre-Columbian South American cultures—Inca, Chimu, Tairona, and Moche, among others—which came to the museum through Paul-Emile and Fred Schatzmann at the beginning of the twentieth century. To complete this overview of the MEG’s permanent collection, mention should be made of two other sections that will also be of interest to tribal art aficionados. The first of these is the ethnomusicology section, which is made up of two complementary elements, one of musical instruments and the other of musical recordings from five continents. Instruments that inspired and provided the means to conduct research in the scientific classification of musical instruments known as organology are shown (fig. 22), as is a selection of the instruments associated with recordings in the MEG’s Archives Internationales de Musique Populaire (International Popular Music Archives). The second and final section is the one devoted to Europe. It examines a variety of subjects that relate the universality of certain fundamental questions to which every society brings its own approach through its ritual, religious, and political practices. Visitors will surely be surprised to discover that so-called “popular” works can be the expression of highly sophisticated aesthetic endeavors. Ample evidence of this is provided by the Alpine and Rhone River Valley collection, assembled by Georges Amoudruz and acquired by the city of Geneva in 1976, which constitutes one of this department’s most important holdings. Equally interesting are the incredible dried vegetal matter harvest bouquets collected in Poland by curator Federica Tamarozzi
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