American Indian Material Culture: The Ten Kate Collection, 1882-1888

In the course of two years of fieldwork in the American West in the 1880s, the Dutch anthropologist Hermann ten Kate (18581931) assembled a sizeable collection of Native American artifacts. These pieces, ranging from utilitarian tools to genuine works of art, are especially important because of their well-documented collection history and early date of acquisition. Some of the objects, the vast majority of which are today housed by the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, represent the oldest specimens of their kind to have been preserved. This catalogue presents the complete collection and places the artifacts in their cultural and historical context by drawing on Ten Kate's own travel diaries, anthropological studies spanning more than a century of research, as well as Native American oral traditions.

Pieter Hovens is curator of the North American Department at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Netherlands. His publications include studies on Ten Kate’s life and work, Native American material culture, Indian-White relations, and gypsy affairs.