Java, Indonesia spear point collected on the Fahnestock Expedition; Possibly from the Moro, the Damascus steel blade with twisted shaft, 15"l (38.1 cm).

PROVENANCE: Inherited by a direct descendant of Sheridan Fahnestock.

The Fahnestock expeditions were organized between 1934 and 1941 by Brothers Bruce and Sheridan Fahnestock (The archives of which can be found in the Archives of the Library of Congress).

There were a total of three expeditions, each of which took the brothers and crew (the first expedition included their mother, Mary Sheridan Fahnestock) to the coast of China where on Vanua Levu Island, Fiji they were two of the first Westerners to uncover a set of ancient petroglyphs carved into the fragments of what was once a 50-foot-high monolith. These fragments are known as the Ndakunimba Stones and their origin and use remain a mystery. In 1940, the second expedition was funded by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. They traveled to American Samoa, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Australia.

While there they recorded indigenous music on cellulose-acetate discs using a Presto Disc Cutter and collected Pacific bird specimens. Unfortunately, this expedition ended eight months early when the ship sunk off the coast of Australia. In February 1942 the Fahnestock brothers traveled to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and continued the original goal of recording indigenous music, this time Bali, Java, Madura, and also the Kangean Islands.

Years later, it was revealed that this trip was also an intelligence assignment undertaken at the request of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At an earlier White House meeting, the President had asked them to evaluate Dutch military preparations on Java, assess the usefulness of small watercraft for Pacific Islands combat, and ensure that U.S. defense funds allocated to Southeast Asia were being properly spent.

It should also be noted that these musical recordings, were the first of their kind and were eventually released publicly as "Music for the Gods: The Fahnestock South Sea Expedition: Indonesia", the edition was curated by Grateful Dead Drummer Mickey Hart. (Refs. http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guides/fahnestock.html, http://www.folkways.si.edu/music-for-the-gods-the-fahnestock-south-sea-expedition-indonesia/world/album/smithsonian)