AMus_E010130

Title: A message stick held in the Australian Museum

Description: SUMMARY: In about 1901, an Aboriginal woman on Dunk Island named Jenny received this message stick from her brother on the mainland. The message urged Jenny to make her way to Palm Island to look after their sick mother, and to wait for her brother to arrive shortly after. Jenny is likely to have been one of at least four mainland Aboriginal people who were employed as servants to the naturalist Edmund J. Banfield and his wife Sarah-Anne Smith. Everything we know about her so far comes from Banfield's diaries and memoirs (see folder in OneDrive). In September of 1896, Banfield and Smith applied for lease over part of the island, and moved their temporarily at the end of that year. At this time they lived in tents on one of the bays but the experience convinced them to become the first permanent white settlers on the island. During this early foray, Jenny and her husband Mickie relocated with them, and were employed primarily to hunt for food. Banfield's descriptions of the Aboriginal inhabitants of Dunk Island and of his Aboriginal servants are always heavily patronising, bordering on ridiculue, though being reliant on them for his survival he did not interfere with their movements or ceremonies. In Banfield's diary, Jenny is recorded as being skilled at trapping large mangrove crabs. She used a waddy for this purpose, coaxing the crabs from their holes in a process that could take up to half an hour. Mickie carried his fish spears and a dugong harpoon to hunt from the shore or from boats. With the other Aboriginal hunters employed by the two settlers they divided different parts of the fish according to kin obligations. They also observed taboos, for example avoiding certain species because of totemic relationships or during periods of mourning. The fact that Jenny was adept at coastal hunting and foraging and that she had a brother as well as cousins on the mainland, visible by smoke columns, indicates that she was likely to have been a saltwater woman of the Dyirbal community. Her husband Mickie was from Palm Island. On Dunk Island, Jenny's other duties involved meeting the irregular steamer from the mainland that would sometimes arrive late at midnight and carried essential provisions as well as news of her kin from the mainland. In early 1897, Mickie sent communications to Jenny's cousins on the mainland using signal fires. In one recorded instance, he used smoke signals to request baskets. By at least 1901 Jenny's mother was living on Palm Island. This was some time before the establishment of the notorious Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement where mainland Aboriginal communities were forcibly relocated from 1918 onwards. It is possible that she herself was a Manbarra woman, Indigenous to Palm Island, or that she married into that community, or that she moved their after Jenny married. By the end of the 19th century, the Indigenous community on Palm Island had been seriously depleted through exploitation in the beche-de-mere and pearling industries. We don't know if Jenny made it to Palm Island to care for her mother, but it is highly likely due to the degree mobility and communication between the islands and mainland coastal communties. Message sticks went back and forth between the mainland the islands, on visiting cutters manned by Aboriginal workers in the beche de mere industry. One such cutter arrived at Dunk Island from Princess Charlotte Bay much further to the north in November 1906. On this vessel an Aboriginal worker by the name of Mattie carried another message stick from Jenny's brother, this time addressed to Mickie himself. It has not survived but was described as being "about the size and shape of a lead pencil, on which had been cut two continuous intersecting grooves". Mattie was disappointed to learn that Mickie was on Palm Island on that day and could not receive the message. The content of this message was that he (Jenny's brother) was in Cooktown and was intending to come to Dunk Island. This provides a suggestion that Jenny's husband was a traditional owner of Dunk Island from whom visitors needed to request permission of travel.

Message: «Sister, go to Palm Island to look after our mother. I will follow soon»

From: brother of Jenny on the mainland To: sister Jenny on Dunk Island Re: Care for mother on Palm Island Register remarks: This message stick from Dunk Island bought from the recipient Jenny "Her brother on the mainland sent this to Jenny on Dunk Isld to say that she must go to the Palm Isld to look after their mother and that he would follow bye and bye" (E 10130)

Creator of Object: Sender:

Date Created: 1901

Notes on date created: terminus ante quem

Item type: message stick in a collection

State/Territory: QLD

Notes on linguistic areas: The origin of the message stick is Dunk Island, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Source types: museum collection

Institution/Holder file: The Australian Museum object identifier: E010130

Collector: Purchased by Mr Charles Hedley

Coordinates: 17°56'48.001200"S,146°09'21.999600"E  (-17.946667, 146.156111)

Media copyright: The Australian Museum

Notes on coordinates: Absolute coordinates for Dunk Island, Queensland, per Google maps. Wikipedia: Dunk Island, known as Coonanglebah in the Warrgamay and Dyirbal languages, is an island within the locality of Dunk in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia.

URL institution: http://collections.australianmuseum.net.au/amweb/pages/am/Display.php?irn=3230&QueryPage=%2Famweb%2Fpages%2Fam%2FAdvQuery.php&highlight_term=

Notes: REGISTER

Date: 24 August 1901

Name or Description: Message stick smaller x [than previous]

Locality: Dunk Isld. How Acquired: Purchased

Name of Donor or Seller: through Chas. Hedley

Estimated or Market Value:

Destination:

Remarks: This message stick from Dunk Island bought from the recipient Jenny "Her brother on the mainland sent this to Jenny on Dunk Isld to say that she must go to the Palm Isld to look after their mother and that he would follow bye and bye" (E 10130)

OTHER NOTES

AM correspondence includes a handwritten note of "Information re Specimens obtained in N. E. Queensland during August, 1901 by C. Hedley." but no message sticks are listed.

Media Files:

Data Entry: Julia Bespamyatnykh, Nitzan Rotman