PERCE STERNUM, - Lot 92

PERCE STERNUM, Wood with beautiful light-brown patina Vanuatu (New Hebrides), Melanesia Length: 115.7 cm Missing and blunt tip With engraved double domes and traces of pigments. The simple handle ends in a guard decorated with a string of fibers and hair. Provenance: Jean André Henry Edgar Birolleau (1859 - 1916), senior physician with the Colonies Medical Corps - Rochefort sur Mer, present in New Caledonia from 1887 to 1898. Jean André Henry Edgar BIROLLEAU (1859 - 1916) was a senior physician in the Colonial Medical Corps, and took part in a number of campaigns, including Marenge from November 1882 to August 1883, then Senegal on the Salamendre from April 1883 to January 1886. This was followed by three expeditions to New Caledonia between 1887 and 1898, a total of eleven years. The year 1898 marked the end of transportation to New Caledonia, while the penal colony in French Guiana continued to operate. A medical officer seconded as ship's doctor, he treated officers, non-commissioned officers, gabiers and mechanics for illnesses contracted during the voyage, including tuberculosis. On arrival at his destination, he took as much care of his co-religionists as he did of the indigenous Canak people, fighting in particular against the scourge of the time, leprosy, and no doubt receiving as a gift of gratitude this monstrance axe and the few spears we are presenting. The return journey took in the New Hebrides, where the ship was loading goods including sandalwood. From this anchorage, he received or bought headbreakers, axes and sternum drills, which are now being auctioned off. He then continued his career as a senior physician in French Guiana, ending it in Madagascar in 1903. He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1901, and an Officer in 1913.