Hiram M. Hiller Jr.

He traveled in Oceania and in South, Southeast, and East Asia, returning with archeological, cultural, zoological, and botanical specimens and data for museums, lectures and publications.

He was born on March 8, 1867, near Kahoka, Missouri, to Colonel Hiram Milliken Hiller Sr. (1834–1895) and the former Sarah Fulton Bell (1837–1915), who were both from Pennsylvania.

The elder Hiller, a Civil War veteran and lawyer, was a prominent citizen of Clark County, Missouri, and was instrumental in the success of Kahoka until his death in a railroad accident.

[6] Edward S. Morse, a Harvard zoologist, was giving lectures about Japan, then a subject of great fascination in the West, throughout Boston; Hiller appears to have been inspired by these.

[5] In October 1895, Hiller, Furness, and Harrison left the United States, using their own money to search for the fabled Dayak headhunters of Borneo to collect ethnological specimens for the new University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

On their way to the South Seas, they stopped at Yokohama, Amami, and Okinawa, among other places in Japan, arriving in Borneo after seven months of travel from the United States.

They traveled in Ceylon, India, Burma, and Australia before sailing for Hawaii (recently annexed by the United States) and Vancouver, circling the world before returning home in May 1900.

Leaving Philadelphia in February 1901, they traveled to New Orleans and San Francisco before sailing for Honolulu and Yokohama aboard the Sir Coptic.

[10] Once Hiller returned home, he stayed in contact with Oyabe, who wrote him friendly letters encouraging him to "tell the world about my beloved Ainu people.

[9] The Penn Museum also holds 57 artifacts and 3 diaries Furness and Hiller brought back from Amami and Okinawa,[6] and the university library has additional materials.