PMH326870_D4046

Title: A possible message stick from Montgomery Island at the Peabody Museum Harvard

Description: PMH online catalog: "DISPLAY TITLE: Wooden hairpin INVENTORY DESCRIPTION Ornament, carved wood, cylindrical with tapered ends, burned design" however in PMR-24-142 Kelly 32-68DIST.pdf p42 and p105 this is described as "Death message"

Message: perhaps funeral but ambiguous

State/Territory: WA

Notes on linguistic areas: 27.02.2024 PK: Note that Peabody associates this with Montgomery Islands Tasmania, presumably what is meant is Montgomery Rocks but this is also incorrect. Most likely Montgomery Island, Western Australia. PK wrote to PMH on 1 March: "The object 32-68-70/D4046 is also misprovenanced as the uninhabited Montgomery Rocks Tasmania in the online catalogue when this should probably be Yawajaba Island (formerly Montgomery Island), Western Australia."

Dimension 1: 223mm Dimension 2: 1mm Dimension 3: 1mm

Institution/Holder file: Peabody Museum Harvard object identifier: 32-68-70/D4046

Coordinates: 15°57'32.000400"S,124°12'23.000400"E  (-15.958889, 124.206389)

Notes on coordinates: Absolute coordinates for Yawajaba Island Montgomery Island), Western Australia, per Google maps. Wikipedia: Yawajaba Island, often referred to as Montgomery Island, is an island off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia.

URL institution: https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/77813?ctx=150ce78f426b8461153a072fb5d4efa3b9798955&idx=0

Notes: 27.02.2024 PK: The discrepancy between the online catalogue and the accession documents description suggests this has been reassessed, but it's possible that this was originally a hairpin repurposed as a message stick

Media Files:

Data Entry: Piers Kelly, Nitzan Rotman