amsd_00030

Title: Sketch of a message stick from Northern Queensland by Hamlyn-Harris (1918)

Description: Sketch of message stick on p. 24, Fig.12, of "On messages and "Message Sticks" employed among the Queensland Aborigines" by R. Hamlyn-Harris: "This stick [...] is provided with a plume of yellow-crested cockatoo feathers mounted in gum cement. A stick of this kind, almost a rarity, would only be used by the headman of a tribe in communicating with the headman of another, and as soon as received the plumes would be taken off the stick and worn in the hair, pending the arrival of the ceremony to which he had been summoned. The lines, half circles, and crosses (of which there are six altogether) are but lightly carved on a piece of white gum, and the whole is raddled in dark ochre. Such a message stick might on occasions be wrapped up in a piece of bark. "

Date Created: 1918

Notes on date created: terminus ante quem

Item type: image of a message stick (artefact missing)

State/Territory: QLD

Notes on linguistic areas: The message stick is associated with Turn-off Lagoon, via Burketown, North Queensland

Dimension 1: 196mm Dimension 2: 24mm

Materials: wood

Sources:

Hamlyn Harris, R. 1918. “On messages and ‘message sticks’ employed among the Queensland Aborigines.”

Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 6:13-36.

Collector: This stick was donated by a Protector of Aboriginals, Mr. E. P. Smith, N.E. inland of Burketown (p. 25)

Coordinates: 17°44'27.200400"S,139°32'51.201600"E  (-17.740889, 139.547556)

Notes on coordinates: Absolute coordinates for Burketown, Queensland, per Google maps. Wikipedia: Burketown is an isolated outback town and coastal locality in the Shire of Burke, Queensland, Australia. According to wikipedia: Turn Off Lagoon is located on the Nicholson River about 26 kilometres west of present-day Doomadgee site, which is about 90km west from Burketown.

URL source 1: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/47577#page/51/mode/1up

Media Files:

Data Entry: Julia Bespamyatnykh, Nitzan Rotman