ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the consequences of the transfer of individual culturally charged material items between societies that have different cultural values. This is an especially urgent matter, epistemologically, aesthetically, and ethically, when the societies concerned are likely to develop or are already in an unequal power relationship. Things change hands in a wide variety of ways. Before looking at some of those ways, it is worth acknowledging that the phrase 'things with material aspects' is an attempt to recognise that many such things may have immaterial aspects, too. Things changed hands in a wide variety of ways between Indigenous peoples and Euros, some consensual, others under duress of various kinds, and others surreptitiously. In 1768, the British Admiralty sent an expedition to the south Pacific under the command of James Cook with two purposes: the publicly acknowledged one of observing from Tahiti, the transit of Venus across the sun; and the secret one of searching for a rumoured southern continent.
