| Coordinates WGS84 | 25°04'S, 150°09'E -25.07, 150.15 |
QM_QE1940
Title: A message stick from Camboon in the Queensland Museum Kurilpa
Description: Sketch of message stick on p. 29, Fig.22, of "On messages and "Message Sticks" employed among the Queensland Aborigines" by R. Hamlin-Harris: "This stick is made of an ironbark, andits surfaces are engraved with faint lines, more pronounced on the obverse side. Message unknown"
Date Created: 1918
Notes on date created: terminus ante quem
Item type: message stick in a collection
State/Territory: QLD
Notes on linguistic areas: The message stick is associated with Camboon, Queensland
Dimension 1: 193mm Dimension 2: 21mm
Materials: ironbark
Sources:
Institution/Holder file: Queensland Museum Kurilpa object identifier: QE1940
Coordinates: 25°04'24.898800"S,150°09'16.801200"E (-25.073583, 150.154667)
Notes on coordinates: Absolute coordinates for Camboon, Queensland, per Google maps. Wikipedia: Camboon is a rural locality in the Shire of Banana, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, Camboon had a population of 76 people.
URL source 1: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/47577#page/51/mode/1up
Notes: QM REGISTER [Ethnology Register 1911-1968 QE5816]
Date: March 16, 1923
Registration no: 1937
Name or Description: Message stick, diamond cross marksbr/> Locality: Camboon, Q.?
From Whom Acquired:
How Acquired:
References to Papers:Old. Coll. 312
Destination:
Remarks:
OTHER COMMENTS
Price, Sophie, Lindy Allen, and Chantal Knowles. 2021. "'The (not-so) sacred ibis’–Archibald Meston, the colonial collector, and the Queensland museum." Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Culture 12:73-121.:
In 1895, Purcell wrote to de Vis again, but this time to express his disappointment about the two message sticks on display and lack of acknowledgement of him as the collector as well as the wording on the label describing the marks on them as ‘meaningless’. He states that he, in fact, collected these for the museum, but our sense is they were originally intended to be part of the Wild Australia Show collection and could have belonged to any of the performers recruited in northwest Queensland.
"When in Brisbane recently I chanced to go through the Museum with a friend, and in one of the cases I saw “Blackfellows letter or message stick” “Meaningless” written underneath on the cards. These are two that I gave you a year or two ago, and I would like to point out if they are message sticks how can they be meaningless – the remark looks rather pointed to myself – I went to great trouble to get these two for you and I think it hardly fair, that “Meaningless” should be attached to only mine in the whole collection.
I called to see you about it, but found you out – To further prove my case that the aborigines do understand these message sticks I have some just returned that I sent away to the tribe and the correct interpretation exactly as I got it from the boy has just come to hand, and I have always held that these people do understand them in spite of authorities on the subject who only get their information on the Aborigines second hand and in town. However I am writing for an English Society an article on the message stick which I can safely challenge anyone to disprove, I have always and will always impart correct knowledge as far as I can and when unable to do that scorn from making up languages that never existed to gall people with, as many are prone to do." (Purcell, 1895)
The ‘authorities on the subject’ to whom he refers no doubt includes Meston, and the tone indicates that the acrimonious nature of the relationship between the two men discussed earlier had continued. The message sticks, like Meston’s breastplates, were not added to the QE Register for many years after they were received, and in this instance, were registered in 1923.[fn:57: Registration numbers QE1938 and QE1940]. Purcell is not named as the collector, but this letter reveals that to be the case. The origin of the two message sticks is listed as Camboon, perhaps because Purcell’s letter in 1895 was sent from there. He had, in fact, collected these in 1891 from any of the locations from where the Wild Australia Show Troupe members were recruited. [96] Additionally, the QE Register listed the message sticks as possibly being a part of purchase P150 from Meston in 1897, but this is not correct. The two objects have not been linked to D7422 in either register, nor on the current Vernon CMS. However, it is most likely that the two items were part of the donation of ethnological items transferred to the museum by Purcell in 1892, and, as with objects associated with Meston, have been disassociated from their contextual data, and the research has allowed us to disentangle the data in museum records and restore the correct history of these items. Further, given their interconnectedness of Purcell, Meston, and the Wild Australia Show, they are included here as part of a broader consideration of the Archibald Meston Collection at QM. 97
25.01.2026 PK: Mentioned by Lindy Allen
Media Files:
Data Entry: Julia Bespamyatnykh, Nitzan Rotman