Title: A message stick held in the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum
Description: Message stick. Physical Description: Flat object, edges are curved and meet at pointed ends (surfboard shape). Is a hardwood of a dark brown colour. The surface is smooth and shiny (polishedsanded finish). At on end feathers protrude from the object (long thin ones) and are bound to the message stick by a thing fibrous material which is covered by a waxy/resin substance. On both sides are incised patterns which are basically the same except for the central one. The central designs consist of an oval shape incised into the wood and on one side this is filled with an incised zig zag pattern and then a long wavy line, running horizontally along the object and an odd shape like a pacman?!. On the other side the oval is filled with three small circles which are filled with a cross hatching pattern. Length: 67cm, Width (middle): 7cm, Width (ends): 3.6cm
Item type: message stick in a collection
Notes on linguistic areas: The origin of the message stick is unknown. Hence, it cannot be associated with a linguistic area.
Dimension 1: 670mm Dimension 2: 70mm
Materials: wood
Source types: museum collection
Date collected: Unknown
Institution/Holder file: The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum object identifier: 25808
Collector: Unknown
Media copyright: The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum
URL institution: https://catalogue.anthropologymuseum.uq.edu.au/?record=ecatalogue.25808
Data Entry: Nitzan Rotman