| Coordinates WGS84 | 23°11'S, 144°21'E -23.19, 144.35 |
BM_Oc1901_1221_17
Title: A message stick from Queensland held in the British Museum
Description: Message stick of wood (pine), cylindrical, carved with longitudinal lines of zigzag and notches, infilled with charcoal and emu fat. Accompanying sketch: "Cylindrical stick of (imported) pine carved with longitudinal lines of zig zag for notches etc. the latter filled with charcoal and emu fat. Message stick. Dalleburra tribe. Cut by Mickey, a man of the Woongo class. The translation as given by Mickey is said to be: "Mickey want 'em two fellow coat and shirt"
Message: Translation of the message stick as rendered by Mickey [the creator]: “Mickey want ‘em two fellow coat, hat and shirt” (Notes written in 1901 by Robert Christison - from Ethdoc 903)
Creator of Object: Made by: Mickey (chief/native leader; Australian; Indigenous Australian; Male; 1824 - 1914; circa). Biography: "Head-man, ko-bee-berry, of the section Woongo of the Yirandali people, Queensland; married to Mary. Mickey and Mary worked and lived on Lammermoor Cattle Station, run by Robert Christison, who gave him a king plate. Mickey and Mary adopted Jacob Chermside, an orphaned Yirandali boy." Bibliography: "Bennett, M.M. 1927. Christison of Lammermoor.London: Alston Rivers."
Date Created: 1901
Notes on date created: terminus ante quem
Item type: message stick in a collection
Subtype: traditional
State/Territory: QLD
Linguistic area 1: Chirila: Yirandali Austlang: L42 - Yirandali Glottolog: yira1239
Notes on linguistic areas: The message stick is associated with Lammermoor, Mitchell, Queensland. Curator's comments: "Message stick of Dalleburra tribe, Narkool, Lower Hill Creek, Mitchell District, North Queensland" Production ethnic group #1: "Yirandali (aka Dalleburra) - Also known as: Daleburra; Dalleburra; Jirandali; Irendely; Mungobarra; Gutonbarra. Scope note: From Queensland. Yirandali is the contemporary name for what Robert Christison and MM Bennett referred to as the Dalleburra Tribe." Production ethnic group #2: "Woongo"
Dimension 1: 120mm Dimension 2: 10mm Dimension 3: 8mm
Materials: charcoal, emu fat, pine wood
Source types: museum collection
Date collected: Acquisition date: 1901
Institution/Holder file: The British Museum object identifier: Oc1901,1221.17
Collector: Donated by: Robert Christison Curator's comments: "‘Message stick of Dalleburra tribe, Narkool, Lower Hill Creek, Mitchell District, North Queensland. (Carved from imported pine by Mickey, an old man of the class Woonga of the Dalleburra tribe. The notches have been filled with charcoal and emu-fat). Translation of the message stick as rendered by Mickey. “Mickey want ‘em two fellow coat, hat and shirt” (In the languages of the Australian aboriginals there is no inflexion of nouns to denote plural, consequently they always use the singular form when speaking English, even when using the noun in the plural sense).’ [Notes written in 1901 by Robert Christison - from Ethdoc 903]." Acquisition notes: "Christison acquired this collection of 20 objects from his Lammermoor station in Queensland’s Mitchell District. At the time he donated them to the British Museum, he described them as ‘Weapons of the Dalleburra tribe whose chief camping ground was round the waterhole Narkool on Lower Tower Hill Creek, which is the main source of the Thomson River, Queensland, Latitude 20o S longitude 144o E’ (Ethdoc 903)."
Coordinates: 23°11'8.498400"S,144°20'54.301200"E (-23.185694, 144.348417)
Media copyright: The British Museum British Museum Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Notes on coordinates: Chirila centroid coordinates for Yirandali
IRN: EOC10344
Notes: OT: Bibliographic references Sculthorpe et al. 2015 / Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (p.175, fig.56) National Museum of Australia 2015 / Encounters. Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum (p.139). 5.12.23 NR: checked against BM online catalogue.
Media Files:
Data Entry: Olena Tykhostup, Nitzan Rotman