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decorated kukris on display throughout the
museum. In addition to its spiritual resonance, the
kukri is a weapon therefore symbolizing both
peace and war, attack and defence. The kukri car-
ried by offi cers and soldiers alike becomes for
the Ghurka 'a chopping extension of his domi-
nant arm' (British Army, 2007b) with all that this
implies for a soldier. Caplan (1995, p. 133) sug-
gests that the kukri appears in much of the fi c-
tional and military literature written about the
Gurkhas and is inevitably linked to 'Gurkha Tales'
portraying their 'tenacity, strength and courage'
and as such is one of the dominant images that
serves to stereotype these particular soldiers.
These ethnographic objects are placed in
a combination of what Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
(1998, p. 20) refers to as 'in-context', namely
traditional wall displays and glass cases, and
in situ
displays such as dioramas and tableaux.
She argues that the second category tends to
'appeal to those who argue that cultures are
coherent wholes in their own right, that environ-
ment plays a signifi cant role in cultural forma-
tion, and that displays should present process
and not just products'. The combination of the
two in this section of the museum shows that
the Ghurka is a product of his environment and
becoming a soldier is a result of processes within
that environment. There is a clear duality here
between the military and civilian life of the Gur-
kha. The emphasis on women in the initial dis-
play refl ects an interest in the human image of
not only the soldier but also his family. It sug-
gests a world outside of the army with his other
'family' his blood kin. The artefacts and touch
screen displays can assist the visitor to construct
meanings of Nepalese national identity and
help to place the Gurkha in his homeland and
provides a socio-cultural context especially for
the non-expert visitor. This fi rst gallery presents
a visually stimulating and inviting introduction
to Nepal although some of the deeper meanings
and signifi cance are lost if the visitor chooses to
glimpse rather than gaze.
This part of the museum also provides an
illuminated relief map of Nepal and the sur-
rounding area, which assumes geographical
prior knowledge on the part of the British visi-
tor, as the map shows the position of Nepal in
relation to India and Asia rather than to the UK.
The display therefore lacks an orientation map
possibly because of the nature of the museum's
original military visitor base who may have
been familiar with the subcontinent and its
geography, something that is not necessarily the
case today. Tension may therefore be created
between the museum's expectation of visitor
knowledge and actual knowledge. A more 'in-
context' (Kirstenblatt-Gimblett, 1998, p. 21)
approach that establishes a relationship between
the UK and Nepal may be useful.
Leaving this section of the museum, what
follows is very different, as future displays con-
centrate on the military role of the Gurkha.
Through a directed approach (Dean, 1994), one
choice of pathway facilitates a chronological
order, and the displays themselves are organized
by date from the original fi ghting of the Nepal
war, through Gallipoli and the Malay Emergency
through to the Brunei Revolt, the Indonesian
Confrontation and the Falklands, to the present
day. Interpretive methods include tableaux,
dioramas, models, panel displays and pictures.
Displayed overhead is a timeline that provides
orientation through the use of historically famil-
iar fi gures such as Florence Nightingale, Napo-
leon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington.
Dicks (2003) suggests that experiences play
a key role in museums and the visit does indeed
become an experience, as turning a corner trig-
gers a soundtrack, and a loud cry from a life-size
model of a charging Gurkha armed to the teeth
soon turns a glance into a gaze that is further
held by a short commentary. The realities of war-
fare are not shirked away from. Further graphic
dioramas show the Gurkha in action, the kukri as
a tool of war. One tableau features the bloodbath
of machine gun and barbed wire of the First
World War whilst another a jungle camp with
sentries awaiting the enemy. This type of dis-
play shows some of the violence of war in a
seemly realistic and gruesome manner but at
the same time manages to sanitize the horror.
Like many military museums, there is a
great deal of attention shown to uniforms (Uzzell,
1989), which refl ect the offi cial institution of the
regiment (Jones, 1996, p. 155). Uniforms are a
powerful representation of cohesiveness and
conformity, and symbolic of the armed forces.
Pearce (1994, pp. 19-20) uses the example of
an infantry offi cer's red jacket on display at the
National Army Museum, London, to assess how
such an object can 'accumulate meanings as
time passes' and that this type of object through
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