BM_Oc1900_0723_58

Title: A message stick from North Queensland held in the British Museum

Description: BM description: Commemorative stick, message stick, of wood, coloured red, rounded at the ends. Ornamented with incised lines. Accompanying sketch: "Australia (Queensland). Piece of wood coloured red rounded at one end. Ornamented with cut lines. Cairns district. Chokay or stick cut to commemorate the death of three children"

Message: the death of three children; Correspondence from Handley Feb 4/96 indicates: "'No. 3 is in memory of his children that died. He pointed to crosses in side, these figures [...] & said they indicated the children had died of a pain inside'."

Date Created: 1900

Notes on date created: terminus ante quem

Item type: message stick in a collection

Subtype: traditional

State/Territory: QLD

Linguistic area 1: Chirila: Djabugay Austlang: Y106 - Djabugay / Tjapukai^ Glottolog: dyaa1242

Notes on linguistic areas: The message stick is associated with Cairns, North Queensland

Term for 'message stick' (or related) in language: tyukay ("Chokay")

Dimension 1: 75mm Dimension 2: 15mm Dimension 3: 7mm

Materials: wood

Techniques: incised, pigmented

Source types: museum collection

Date collected: Acquisition date: 1900

Institution/Holder file: The British Museum object identifier: Oc1900,0723.58

Collector: Purchased through: Rollin & Feuardent Field Collection by: W Charles Handley Curator's comments: "Kelly 2019, p.4 says of this message stick: 'Figure 2. Message stick from Queensland in the British Museum (Oc1900,0723.58), collected by W Charles Handley in c. 1900. According to the catalogue, the object communicates the deaths of three children. On the basis of Roth’s (1897) glossing of Kalkatungu message sticks, the two central diamonds enclosing a cross would represent ‘male’ and the adjacent diamond enclosing a vertical line would stand for ‘female’. If these motifs had wide currency in Queensland, this might indicate the genders of the three deceased children.'" Register slip comment: "'Cairns district. Chokay or stick cut to commemorate the death of three children'. Correspondence from Handley Feb 4/96 indicates: "'No. 3 is in memory of his children that died. He pointed to crosses in side, these figures [...] & said they indicated the children had died of a pain inside'." Bibliographic references: Kelly 2019 / Australian message sticks: Old questions, new directions (p.3) Sculthorpe et al 2021 / Ancestors, artefacts, empire: Indigenous Australia in British and Irish Museums (p. 113, fig. 11.1)

Coordinates: 16°55'6.999600"S,145°46'41.199600"E  (-16.918611, 145.778111)

Media copyright: The British Museum British Museum Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Notes on coordinates: Absolute coordinates for Cairns

URL institution: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=505573&partId=1&searchText=message+stick&images=true&sortBy=fromDateDesc&page=1

IRN: EOC10196

Notes: PK: Interesting that this artefact is pigmented, perhaps with ochre. Check against other interpreted artefacts that are pigmented to determine meaning of pigmentation. 30.11.23 NR: checked against BM online catalogue.

Media Files:

Data Entry: Olena Tykhostup, Nitzan Rotman