NMA2014_0039_0027

Title: A message stick in the National Museum of Australia

Description: NMA description: "A wooden message stick which is carved on both sides. The design or message incorporates several straight lines across the width of the stick, and a zig-zag pattern near the centre."

Item type: message stick in a collection

Dimension 1: 162mm Dimension 2: 24mm Dimension 3: 8mm

Institution/Holder file: The National Museum of Australia object identifier: 2014.0039.0027

Collector: Australian Inland Mission Frontier Fete and Exhibition 1928 collection

Media copyright: The National Museum of Australia

Notes: From NMA Object Schedule sent by Anne Faris on 25.08.2022. According to NMA: "This collection comprises material displayed at the Presbyterian Church's 1928 Australian Inland Mission (AIM) Frontier Fete and Exhibition, an event held over three days in April 1928 in Sydney's Town Hall. The collection includes a diverse range of the objects displayed there, as well as some of the associated display labels. These objects were selected by staff, principally women, working at AIM homes/hospitals in different parts of Australia. They were responding to a call to send in objects which '... will give the city dweller an opportunity of visualising more clearly the conditions of inland Australia'. The collection relates to a significant moment in the history of the AIM. It co-incides with the beginning of the Aerial Medical Service and the introduction of the Traeger pedal radios - technologies which would shape how 'pioneer' life in 'remote' Australia became part of Australia's national identity. AIM events, such as the 1928 Frontier Fete and Exhibition, were important in promoting the work of the AIM. They acted as a focus for AIM's metropolitan supporters, as well as raising funds for AIM activities. The Aboriginal objects in this collection show that despite AIM being set up to provide a 'mantle of safety' for non-Indigenous Australians living in remote locations, many of these AIM nursing homes were enmeshed in complex relationships with local Aboriginal communities."

Media Files:

Data Entry: Piers Kelly