ABSTRACT
Since the advent of European explorers, missionaries, traders and subsequent colonialism, Melanesian material culture has lived a double life (Thomas 2013: xi). On the one hand, indigenous material culture remained significant in local lives, despite many objects being abandoned, replaced by Western products, or destroyed by colonial agents. On the other hand, Melanesian objects were systematically collected by these same colonial agents, who included colonial officers, missionaries, traders and anthropologists (cf. Bolton, this volume).
