| Coordinates WGS84 | 31°01'S, 142°52'E -31.02, 142.86 |
PRM1989_46_9
Title: A message stick from New South Wales held in the Pitt Rivers Museum, and reproduced by A.W. Howitt (1889, 1904)
Description: Message stick holder: Pitt Rivers Museum, "Message stick, wrapped in string. The stick is carved to a tip at one end. The cotton string is wrapped around the centre of the stick." Sketch of message stick (fig. 4) in Howitt's 'Notes on Australian message sticks and messengers', p. 331 Sketch of message stick (fig.5) on p. 704 of Howitt's 1904 "The native tribes of southeast Australia"
Message: Fig. 4, Plate XIV, represents a message stick sent by a Tongaranka blackfellow inviting two of his friends at a distance to come and see him as his wife was ill and could not travel. The notch (a) means the sender; (b)and (c) the two men invited. The stick was wrapped round with a piece of thread to render it less liable to be lost. (Howitt 1889, p. 327) "[...] a Tongaranka blackfellow inviting two of his friends at a distance to come and see him as his wife was ill and could not travel. The notch (a) means the sender; (b) and (c) the two men invited." (p. 327) "Fig. 4. Message stick from a man of the Tongaranka tribe, (a) the sender of the message, (b), (c) the two men initiated by (a) to meet him." (Howitt 1889, p. 331) "No. 5 represents a message-stick sent by a man of the Tongaranka tribe, inviting two of his friends at a distance to come and see him, as his wife was ill and could not travel. The lower notch represents the sender, and the two others the men invited. This message-stick is made of part of a small branch of a tree, and is wrapped round with a few strands of a man's kilt, with which article of man's attire the boy is invested after initiation. The whole is tied up in about two feet of the cord made of twisted opossum fur, which the novice wears for a time, after his initiation, as evidence of his having been made a " young man." " (Howitt 1904, p. 692)
Creator of Object: Sender: "a Tongaranka blackfellow" Recipient: "two of his friends" (1889 p. 327; 1904, p692)
Date Created: 1883
Notes on date created: terminus ante quem
Item type: message stick in a collection
Subtype: traditional
State/Territory: NSW
Linguistic area 1: Chirila: Wanyiwalku Austlang: D21 - Wanyiwalku Glottolog: bagu1250
Notes on linguistic areas: The message stick is associated with the “Tongaranka tribe”: "Message stick from a man of the Tongaranka tribe" (Howitt 1889, p.331). New South Wales. See Tongaranka synonyms at AIATSIS: https://collection.aiatsis.gov.au/austlang/language/d21 Harald wrote: "Wanyiwalku is there [in Glottolog] as Bagundji [bagu1250]" Claire wrote: "https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/darl1243 is the cover term for Paakintyi (of which Wanyiwalku/Pantyikali is a variety); Harald will have to say why he chose the three varieties he did as sub-varieties." Piers decision: Bagundji [bagu1250] will be used to represent "Tongaranka" (ie Wanyiwalku) until Wanyiwalku is represented as a subvariety within glottolog.
Semantic domains: sd_illness, sd_person, sd_person_woman_wife, sd_request_invitation
Dimension 1: 52mm Dimension 2: 17mm
Materials: cotton yarn plant, string binding, wood plant
Techniques: bound, incised, notched
Sources:
Source types: book article, museum collection
Date collected: 1883
Institution/Holder file: Pitt Rivers Museum object identifier: 1989.46.9
Collector: Field Collector: Alfred William Howitt PRM Source: Alfred William Howitt via Edward Burnett Tylor? Acquired: Found unentered, 1989 Donated 1888
Coordinates: 31°01'9.951600"S,142°51'31.921200"E (-31.019431, 142.858867)
Media copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum
Notes on coordinates: Chirila coordinates for Wanyiwalku
URL institution: http://objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID5162.html
URL source 1: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-26171094
URL source 2: https://archive.org/stream/nativetribesofso00howiuoft#page/704
Notes: PRM Catalogue: "Display history: Possibly displayed at the PRM from as early as 1888 with other examples from the Howitt collection of message-sticks (1989.46) (see photograph A23.F11.1, taken in 1995). [JC 11 1 2006] Publications history, trails & websites: Illustrated as figure 4 in Plate XIV (entitled 'Australian Message Sticks') opposite page 331 of 'Notes on Australian Message Sticks and Messengers', by A. W. Howitt, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol XVIII, 1889, pp. 314-332. (Copy in RDF). NB The original pencil drawings by Alfred Robinson used to produce the figures in Plate XIV are held in the PRM Manuscript Collections: Pitt Rivers Museum Papers / Box 2 / 1-3. [JC 20 9 2000, 17 6 2008]" PK: This is probably the smallest message stick in the database PK: No new info in PRM print-out (2019)
Media Files:
Data Entry: Piers Kelly