AMSD - Message Stick CPM1958P100F7C

Coordinates WGS84

11°42'S, 130°26'E
-11.69, 130.43

CPM1958P100F7C

Title: A message stick from Bathurst Island, reproduced by Mountford (1958)

Description: The designs on message stick, Fig. 7c, which an aboriginal carried to the Bathurst Island people, together with the news of the death of Nulatini, did not, in any way, refer to the message that accompanied it, but to topographical details along the motor road between Snake Bay and Cockle Point on Apsley Straits. The upper section, d, is the aboriginal camp at Snake Bay, and the indentations, a, a, are the rocks on its shores. The cross-hatched rectangle in [100] centre of the message stick is the freshwater creek, Primbiamili, across which there is a crude bridge of logs (parallel lines e, f, on either side of the crosshatched rectangle). The long rectangle at the top of the message stick is the track between Snake Bay and Primbiamili Creek; and that at the bottom, from Primbiamili Creek to Cockle Point on Apsley Straits. Symbols b, b, are living stringybark trees by the roadside, and c is a group of dead trees. The crossed squares h, h, indicate trees that had been cut down to clear a motor road between Snake Bay and Cockle Point. Apsley Strait, indicated by rectangle g, was crossed by the messenger in the dug-out canoe, j. The triangles at n, refer to the houses of the Bathurst Island Mission Station. (100-101)

Message: death announcement

Date Created: 1954

Notes on date created: Year of the National Geographic Expedition to Melville Island

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

Subtype: traditional

State/Territory: NT

Linguistic area 1: Chirila: Tiwi Austlang: N20 - Tiwi Glottolog: tiwi1244

Notes on linguistic areas: The message stick is associated with the Bathurst Island people

Cultural region: TopEnd_tiwi

Term for 'message stick' (or related) in language: purunkita

Sources:

Charles P. Mountford (1958). The Tiwi: their Art Myth and Ceremony. London Phoenix Melbourne: Georgian House.