Joel - a long billed fish
Joel - an over stuffed walrus
Maria - I liked the walrus how it's got those funny little flipper feet
Joel - us beside the over stuffed walrus.
Grace - I like it because there was a walrus
From the museum website - The walrus has been on display at the Horniman Museum for more than a century. It most likely came from the Hudson Bay area of eastern Canada and was first seen in London in the ‘Canada’ section of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in South Kensington in 1886. The walrus formed part of a display of animals mostly assembled by the Canadian hunter and explorer James Henry Hubbard whose exhibit was highly praised by Queen Victoria during a visit to the Exhibition. When the Exhibition closed, Frederick Horniman bought the Walrus and other Canadian animals to display in the Horniman Museum. Our Walrus is an unusual taxidermy specimen, it appears stretched and ‘over stuffed’ as it lacks the skin folds characteristic of a walrus in the wild. Over one hundred years ago, only a few people had ever seen a live walrus, so it is hardly surprising that ours does not look true to life. This is probably why it remains one of the most popular exhibits on display in the museum today.
Maria - I liked the fox how it had those funny little pointed ears. I liked its funny little tail
Grace - there was one that you could touch. It felt fluffy
Maria - I like the penguin how its got the yellow bit coming down and its big, long beak
Grace - I got to see penguins
Maria - I like the greyhound's funny little ears
Tim - I don't like his legs. They're too small!
Grace - I got to see dogs and those two sticks
Joel - three gorillas!
Grace - we got to see bones of gorillas. We were dinosaurs
Joel - imagine trying to play that
Grace - we got to see a giant tuba and I saw some little tubas
People could select from hundreds of musical instruments on the wall
(see photo above Grace and the video below).
After choosing the instrument they could hear the sound it makes
Luka -Grace listening to music.
Grace - I was putting my head on there 'cause it was louder
Musical instrument wall - one of three.
Tim - you can hear various conversations as I walked along the length of the wall videoing.
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| Luka - Sea horses going to sleep. They wrap their tails around the weeds so they don't float away |
See the recent 'Lost and found' post for the story about Grace at the museum.
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| Luka- The great view of central London from the garden. |
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| Luka - The totem pole |
Joel - I'm an indian.
Is it better to be high on the totem pole or lower? In western culture 'climbing the ladder' or being 'on top' denotes importance. My understanding is the opposite in Native American culture in regards to totem poles. The bottom figures 'hold up' the others and also (from a website on totem poles...)
Why is the low man important?
Totem poles are carved, not by one carver, but by a head carver and a number of apprentice-carvers. The head carver has a reputation to uphold. Therefore he or she is well aware that the viewers of a finished upright pole range in size from 3 feet (children) to about 7 feet (basketball players). So, to be certain the totem looks professional, the chief carver personally carves or seriously supervises the bottom ten feet of the pole. Inexperienced apprentices are allowed more freedom to carve the higher regions. Therefore the bottom of all totem pole is sometimes the best carved part of the whole pole. Meaning wise, the low man has a much or more meaning than other figures.
Music Jam Session
Maria - I liked it how we could make lots of noise
Four-eyed fish. It has two eye-balls in each eye. One that sees above and one that sees below the water
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