Cricket cage (to hold crickets for their song or for fighting). 68.59.190
In the nearly 50 years since the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology has been in its present location, the Museum has hosted approximately 150 temporary exhibitions. Over the next few weeks, we will look back at some of them.
In 1968, the Museum of Anthropology received an extraordinary collection of 300 musical instruments from around the world. The collection came to the Museum via biology professor David Kidd, from his father Albert, who donated the collection in honor of his late wife, musicologists Elizabeth Ayres Kidd. This wide-ranging ethnomusicology collection received later additions from UNM Professor George Springer.
The very first temporary exhibitions in the newly built (and renamed) Maxwell Museum of Anthropology building featured this collection. Unfortunately titled, “Man [sic] The Music Maker,” the exhibition featured 100 musical instruments from around the world – with a particular focus on Africa, China, Japan, Indonesia and Native North America. A series of short films, screened outdoors in the Maxwell Museum courtyard, accompanied the new Museum building’s inaugural exhibition.
Click on image to view full size.