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1961.6.34

Coiled dilly bag with foundation and stitching of culms of 'Boombi', Xerotes multiflora R. Br.

On display

1961.6.34

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Collection type
Object
Description
Coiled dilly bag with foundation and stitching of culms of 'Boombi', Xerotes multiflora R. Br.
Person
Field collector Mary Ellen Bundock
Other owner Archibald Liversidge
PRM source Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
PRM source Frank Norman Howes
Date / Period
Date made: Before 24/10/1879
Date collected
24/10/1879
Acquisition information
Donated: 06/1961
Materials and processes
Material Plant Stem, Process Coiled
Dimensions
Width: max 360 mm, Length: max 400 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1961.6.34 Other numbers: XII 1653 D XVIII.10.34 Other PRM accession number: 1961.6.34a
Research and responses

The following information was shared by Professor Gaye Sculthorpe, from Deakin University (Melbourne), and former Curator and Section Head, Oceania, at the British Museum, in January 2026.

This bag was transferred from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to the PRM in 1961. It was one of several Aboriginal objects given to Kew Gardens in 1881 by Professor Archibald Liversidge of the University of Sydney which came from Wyangarie Station near Casino in New South Wales. Liversidge was also a commissioner for New South Wales for several international exhibitions, including the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879. At the 1879 exhibition, this bag was part of a group of objects from Wyangarie contributed by 'W.A. Bundock'; note that W.A. Bundock may be an error for W.C. Bundock, the father of Mary Bundock, who sent two bags to Liversidge circa 1879. The Catalogue for the Sydney International Exhibition lists this bag as item '1633 'Dilly bag, made from Boombi'.

Isabel McBryde has written extensively about Mary Bundock and her collecting activities including this bag in "Museum Collections from the Richmond River District", in McBryde, I. (ed.) Records of Times Past, 1978, with details and an image. See also further details in McBryde, I. "Miss Mary, Ethnography and the Inheritance of Concern: Mary Ellen Murray-Prior" in Marcus, J. (ed.) First in their Field. Women and Australian Anthropology, pp.15-46.

Further Aboriginal items collected by Bundock are held in the Wereldmuseum in Leiden, and The Australian Museum in Sydney. Information about Bundock's collections are available at the following link: http://museumex.maas.museum/oai/am/2816.html. Some correspondence from Bundock to Liversidge with references to the two bags she sent him is held in the British Museum Archives - Ethnographic Documents, in the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas (Liversidge bequeathed his collection to the British Museum in 1928). The business card of Liversidge at the PRM (which was found attached to the bag and is now in RDF) has the initials 'M E B' on the reverse, which is Mary Ellen Bundock, and a date of 24.10.79, presumably the date of collection or of Liversidge's acquisition of it. The field collector and acquisition fields have been updated accordingly.

The original accession entry for this object in the Kew museum entry book (Volume 4, 1879-1881, page 58) can be seen online here: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/274314#page/69/mode/1up. The entry lists the original accession of this object as "March 10th Prof. Liversedge. Sydney. 1. Dilly Bag made from "Boombi" Xerotes multiflora R. Br. Wyangarie." There is a later annotation in red pen reading "Sent to Pitt Rivers Mus. 27.1.1961."

A culm is a monocotyledonous stem (as of a grass or sedge). [Encyclopædia Britannica Online] [CF 24/8/2000]

Associated publications
McBryde, I. (1978) “Museum collections from the Richmond River District” in McBryde, I. (Ed.) Records of times past: ethnohistorical essays on the culture and ecology of the New England tribes. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, pp. 136-210. Aird, M. (2021). “‘Three boomerangs… a shilling for each’: connecting objects and images from Moreton Bay, Queensland” in Sculthorpe, G., Nugent, M. and Morphy, H. (Eds.) Ancestors, Artefacts, Empire: Indigenous Australia in British and Irish Museums. London: British Museum Press, pp. 236-237.

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