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1938.35.1

Fire drill and hearth. The fire drill is made from wood and is cylindrical in shape. It is tied with two plant fibre strips to the wooden hearth with is slightly shorter and wider than the drill. The hearth is rectangular in shape and has five circular notches on one side. [SB [OPS Move] 6/4/2017]

1938.35.1

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Collection type
Object
Description
Fire drill and hearth. The fire drill is made from wood and is cylindrical in shape. It is tied with two plant fibre strips to the wooden hearth with is slightly shorter and wider than the drill. The hearth is rectangular in shape and has five circular notches on one side. [SB [OPS Move] 6/4/2017]
Geographical reference
Australia
Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > Australia
Queensland Cairns
Person
Field collector James Edge Partington
PRM source Henry Balfour
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1913
Date collected
By 1913
Acquisition information
Bequeathed: 1939
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Material Plant Fibre, Process Notched, Process Carved, Process Tied
Dimensions
Depth: max 21 mm, Width: max 37 mm, Length: max 475 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1938.35.1 Other numbers: Balfour: 681 a/b Other numbers: Edge Partington: Z 200
Research and responses

This is one of a number of items purchased by Henry Balfour from James Edge-Partington in 1913, presumably at the same time as the Museum purchased the collection retrospectively numbered as 1913.65. On page 87 of his account of Edge-Partington's career, Roger Neich notes that 'he did sell a significant selection of at least 24 items to A. W. Fuller and several other items including an Hawaiian feather cape to Henry Balfour representing the Pitt Rivers Museum'; see ‘James Edge-Partington (1854-1930): An Ethnologist of Independent Means’, by Roger Neich, in Records of the Auckland Museum, Vol. 46 (2009), pp. 57-110. (Photocopy in RDF: Biographies: Edge-Partington.) [JC 4 3 2010]

Search terms: Fire, Fire Accessory

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