NMA2014_0039_0125

Title: Reference to a message stick in a handwritten text at the National Museum of Australia

Description: NMA description: "A handwritten note in black ink on lined cream coloured paper. The text reads 'This is an Aboriginal's / letter to his friend / It is a request for / "Pitchery" which / they chew it acts / like a drug' and 'These Boomerangs & letter / are sent from / Mrs W. [Num?] / Birdsville'. The page has a crease mid way down its length which divides the two notes. The surface of the page displays brown coloured discolouration."

Item type: positive text reference

Notes on linguistic areas: The origin of the message stick is Birdsville

Dimension 1: 200mm Dimension 2: 106mm Dimension 3: 25mm

Materials: ink, paper

Institution/Holder file: The National Museum of Australia object identifier: 2014.0039.0125

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