UQAM485

Title: A message stick held in the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum

Description: Message stick. Physical Description: The object is wooden, hard of a light tan colour and painted a medium brown colour. It is rectangular in shape and one side is flat the other curves slightly (convex). Etchings of eighteen vertical lines appear all the way along the object on both sides. In the middle of the object (on both sides) is a rounded hole that doesn't go all the way through.

Item type: message stick in a collection

State/Territory: NT

Notes on linguistic areas: Roper River, Roper - McArthur region, Northern Territory, Australia, Australia

Dimension 1: 90mm Dimension 2: 25mm Dimension 3: 10mm

Materials: ochre, wood

Source types: museum collection

Date collected: Donated: 1948

Institution/Holder file: The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum object identifier: 485

Collector: Donated by: Roper River Mission

Coordinates: 14°44'8.800800"S,134°43'43.600800"E  (-14.735778, 134.728778)

Media copyright: The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum

Notes on coordinates: An approximate location on the Roper River, near Ngukurr, NT, per Google maps

URL institution: https://catalogue.anthropologymuseum.uq.edu.au/?record=ecatalogue.485

Notes: UQ Anthropology Museum website: "From the UQ Anthropology Museum exhibition 'written on the body' curated by Judy Watson and Diana Young, March - August 2014. Zig-zags may indicate boomerangs, signalling the importance of an event [Memmott 2010]. Memmott, P 2010, Material culture of the north Wellesley Islands. Research report series 8, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands, Brisbane. The Foundation Donation comprises the items from L. P. Winterbotham's personal collection, which were donated to the University of Queensland in 1948 and form the basis of the Anthropology Museum." 21.3.25 NR - https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/entity/roper-river-mission-2/ - "1908 - 1988: Roper River Mission was situated at Roper River, Northern Territory (Building Still standing)."

Media Files:

Data Entry: Nitzan Rotman