item details
NameUnpacking Cocoa Trees. From the album: Skerman family album
ProductionThomas Andrew; photographer; early 1900s; Sāmoa
Classificationblack-and-white prints
Materialssilver, photographic gelatin, photographic paper
Materials Summaryblack and white photograph, gelatin silver print
Techniquesblack-and-white photography
DimensionsSupport: 137mm (width), 86mm (height)
Registration NumberO.042251
Overview
This extract originally appeared in Between Dreams (Te Papa Press, 2026) on page 69.
This extract was authored by Grace Gassin.
The identities of the men in [this photograph] are unknown, but the [image was] taken around 1915, just a year or so after New Zealand took over the administration of Sāmoa from Germany at the start of the First World War in 1914.
... The [image] depicts labourers unpacking cocoa trees. [It appears] in the photo album ‘Samoa’, which originally belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Sydney Skerman, the Surgeon General in Sāmoa during the First World War.