1903.39.65

Collection type

Object

Description

Wooden boomerang, one end curved, the other straight. [El.B 20/4/2007]

Long description

Wooden boomerang, one end curved, the other straight. [El.B 20/4/2007] The wood has lengthways grooves on one side and is covered in red ochre. [MJD 06/09/2010]

Geographical reference

Australia

Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > Australia

Northern Territory

Cultural groups

Arrernte

Person

Field collector Francis James Gillen

Field collector Walter Baldwin Spencer

PRM source Walter Baldwin Spencer

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1902

Date collected

1901 - 1902

Acquisition information

Donated: 1903

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Material Ochre, Process Carved, Process Grooved, Process Painted

Dimensions

Length: max 705 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1903.39.65 Other numbers: Spencer number 42

Research and responses

This object was studied by Philip Jones from the South Australian Museum during a visit from 3 to 6 May 2011. The following comments were recorded: The surface structure is different on the two sides of this object. It looks freshly made and not used, probably it was made for Spencer and Gillen. It was probably made using metal tools. [El.B 16/05/2011]

This object was collected during an expedition of Central Australia led by Walter Baldwin Spencer and Francis Gillen between 1901 and 1902. However, it should be noted that accompanying them was an Aboriginal man called Erlikilyika. He was 'hired' (receiving no monetary payment) to run their campsites, but actually undertook some of the ethnographic work himself. He could speak Arrernte (his native language), Kaytej (another Aboriginal language), and English. In their personal field-diaries, Spencer and Gillen note that they took days off work, leaving Erlikilyika with "entire charge of the ethnological branch", where he spoke with and recorded the complex beliefs and customs of Aboriginal communities that were not his own (the Kaytetye group in particular). Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing if Erlikilyika collected any of these objects himself but we know that he played a vital role in documenting their meaning and significance, and should therefore be credited for his valuable contributions to the expedition. This information was provided by Fionnuala Bradbury, a Master's student in Archaeology at Newcastle University, as part of her thesis entitled "Erlikilyika and Walter Baldwin Spencer: Indigenous Informants, Ethnographic Analogy, and Archaeological Interpretation". There is an abridged version of the thesis in RDF.

Associated publications

S&G 1899: 595 'The common form of the boomerang found amongst the Central tribes has a flattened and more or less curved form measuring from 60-90 cm in length along the curve. The latter is always an open one and may be symmetrica, though, most often, it is not so, and one part of the weapon will be slightly curved or even straight, while the main curve is confined to the other part. ... the blade is always of approximately uniform width along its whole length. ... ... [these boomerangs] are not made with the object of returning to their owner. The workmanship of the weapon varies to a large extent, the better ones are made in the north-east of the Arunta (Arrernte) tribe and these are marked by regular grooves running, side by side, along the length of the curve on the more convex side; the other surface is marked by wider and more uneven grooves. In the poorer specimens the grooves are less even and the whole weapon is more clumsy in make and appearance. ... As a general rule the boomerangs are coated with red ochre, and in addition they may be ornamented at the end which is not held with a few rings of white kaolin or yellow ochre. Some of them are certainly made of mulga, but others of a wood both lighter in colour and weight. ...' Letter 18 March 1896: Some years ago the Udnirringeeta lent some of their Churinga to the one of the rain groups in the Strangways Range[.] They were returned with similar ceremony to that described by me in this mails notes in connection with the Emu Ocknannakilla.(S & G, 1899

Search terms: Weapon, Boomerang