Title: A message stick from Gamardi, Arnhem Land, in the National Museum of Ethnology Osaka
Description: NMEO: "Ritual Tool (Message Stick) (Girayyoug (Message Stick))"; "A piece of wood for communication called a message stick. Used to announce the holding of various rituals. The notches on the piece of wood have no meaning by themselves, and the recipient does not know what they mean. Therefore, a messenger is required, and an adult male acting as a messenger meets with the leader of the recipient village and hands it over to convey its meaning."
Creator of Object: Jakie Unung
Date Created: 1984
Notes on date created: This date refers to the date of collection; 1984-10
Item type: message stick in a collection
Linguistic area 1: Chirila: Burarra Austlang: N82 - Burarra Glottolog: bura1267
Notes on linguistic areas: NMEO: "Australia Northern Territory Arnhem Land Gamardi; Collection point (Kana)Australia Northern Territory (Hokubu) Junshu Arnhem Land Gammadi"
Dimension 1: 690mm Dimension 2: 38mm Dimension 3: 38mm
Materials: wood
Institution/Holder file: National Museum of Ethnology Osaka object identifier: H0123879
Collector: Shuzo Koyama
Place collected: NMEO: "Australia Northern Territory Arnhem Land Gamardi"
Media copyright: National Museum of Ethnology Osaka
URL institution: http://htq2.minpaku.ac.jp/infolib/meta_pub/CsvSearch.cgi
Notes: Note that all text in this entry is originally in Japanese and has been translated using Google Translate. NMEO site states that the following texts (trans from Japanese) are relevant to this object: Kobe City Museum ed. 1986 "Hunter's Dream: The World of Australian Aborigines: Exhibited at the National Museum of Ethnology," Kobe: Kobe City Sports Education Corporation. Edited by Shuzo Koyama et al., 1992, "Australian Aborigines: 50,000 Years of Hunters and Spirits" (National Museum of Ethnology "Australian Aborigines: 50,000 Years of Hunters and Spirits" Catalog) Osaka: Sankei Shimbun Osaka Head Office. Kubo, Masatoshi 1995 "Media Past and Present" Masatoshi Kubo, "Computer Dreaming: A Journey to the World of Australian Aborigines" Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, pp. 198-204." NMEO: "There is a list of specimen names written in English at the time of receipt."
Media Files:
Data Entry: Piers Kelly