ANON1896P10F6

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

Description: Photo of two facets of one message stick (6) on pp. 10-11 of “The message sticks.” (1896)

Message: This stick is made of a round piece of wood, with certain marks cut thereon, and represent the marks cut in the tree, in the tail or end of a Bora Ground. (p. 11)

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. It would be difficult to assign this particular object to any one of those groups. However, the source also provides Indigenous terms for message stick associated with the creators of each object which may help identify the origin. The Indigenous term given for this message stick is "Mooddimah" however there is nothing related to message sticks that approximates this term in the Chirila database.

Term for 'message stick' (or related) in language: murtima ("Mooddimah")

Semantic domains: sd_ceremony

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