ANON1896P10F3

Title: Photo of a Queensland message stick from "The message sticks" (1896)

Description: Photo of two facets of one message stick (3) on pp. 10-11 of “The message sticks.” (1896)

Message: It [the stick] is sent by the warriors to the king, who had sent them on a fighting expedition, the marks thereon (seven) showing the number they had killed; on the other side, as shown in the second picture are to be seen the number of (eight) marks that show who are to be killed, after which they were to return to the camp. (p. 11)

Creator of Object: sender: "the warriors" recipient: "the king"

Date Created: 1870

Notes on date created: terminus ante quem

Item type: image of a message stick (artefact missing)

Subtype: traditional

State/Territory: QLD

Linguistic area 1: Chirila: Gabalbara Austlang: E45 - Gabulbarra

Notes on linguistic areas: This artefact, among the others from the same source, was obtained from "a tribe of aborigines inhabiting the country watered by the Conner's River, on the eastern coast of Queensland" (p. 10). We assume that "Conner's River" is intended to be "Connors River". The Connors River basin coincides with Gabalbara. Other groups, such as Mambura are on tributaries of Connors River. The artefact shown in this entry is called "Woolilanggara" but nothing approximating that term turns up in the Chirila database.

Term for 'message stick' (or related) in language: wulilangkara ("Woolilanggara")

Semantic domains: sd_number, sd_person, sd_war

Sources:

Anonymous. 1896. “The message sticks.” The Australasian Anthropological Journal 1 (1):10-11.

Collector: Mr. A. H. Fox, of the Bank of New South Wales, Taralga, brother of the gentleman who obtained them [sticks] from the aborigines (p. 10)

Coordinates: 22°33'41.605200"S,149°02'38.457600"E  (-22.561557, 149.044016)

Notes on coordinates: Chirila centroid coordinates for Gabalbara

Media Files:

Data Entry: Olena Tykhostup, Piers Kelly