| Coordinates WGS84 | 34°S, 122°43'E -34.00, 122.71 |
BM_Oc5608
Title: A message stick from Western Australia held in the British Museum
Description: British Museum description: Message stick, of smooth wood, carved, with slightly pointed, rounded ends. Engraved with irregular geometric shapes, some filled with diagonal lines. Accompanying sketch: "Western Australia. Message stick of pale yellow wood engraved with unintelligible devices the whole of the pround (?) dotted. 203 Message stick or cundle said to be used to throw into the air to cause rain. loonunda - treening(?) tribe Bay of Esperance, Recherche Bay W Australia."
Message: Message stick or cundle said to be used to throw into the air to cause rain by Wonūnda-Meening tribe Bay of Esperance Recherche Bay W.Australia
Date Created: 1891
Notes on date created: terminus ante quem
Item type: message stick in a collection
State/Territory: WA
Notes on linguistic areas: The message stick is associated with Recherche Archipelago, Esperance Bay, Western Australia
Dimension 1: 190mm Dimension 2: 15mm Dimension 3: 14mm
Materials: wood
Techniques: carved, engraved
Source types: museum collection
Date collected: Acquisition date: 1891
Institution/Holder file: The British Museum object identifier: Oc,+.5608
Collector: Donated by: Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks Previous owner/ex-collection: Government of Victoria Curator's comments: "Rectangular paper label pasted on with printed text: 'Govt. of Victoria 13. Aug. 1891'. See Christy Correspondence (File 'V') 'Ethnographic Collection for Sir John Lubbock' [from the Government of Victoria]. There are two copies of the list which gives further information about the objects. One of these is annotated to show how the collection was divided between the BM [+5586-5677], J Edge Partington and the Natural History Museum. Christy collection registration slip description, written in 1891?: Western Australia Message stick of pale yellow wood engraved with unintelligible devices the whole of the ground dotted. L. 7⅜ in. 203. Message stick or cundle said to be used to throw into the air to cause rain Wonūnda-Meening tribe, Bay of Esperance Recherche Bay W.Australia."
Coordinates: 33°59'48.001200"S,122°42'49.600800"E (-33.996667, 122.713778)
Media copyright: The British Museum British Museum Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Notes on coordinates: Approximate coordinates for Archipelago of the Recherche, Western Australia, per Google maps. Wikipedia: The Archipelago of the Recherche, known locally as the Bay of Isles, is a group of 105 islands, and over 1200 "obstacles to shipping", off the south coast of Western Australia. The islands stretch 230 km from east to west and to 50 km off-shore encompassing an area of approximately 4,000 square kilometres.
IRN: EOC7569
Notes: Additional IDs: Oc1891C2.5608 (old CDMS no.) PK: No more images to request from BM. 5.12.23 NR: checked against BM online catalogue.
Media Files:
Data Entry: Olena Tykhostup, Nitzan Rotman