Wooden carrying vessel, painted red with two white stripes at either end.

Collection type: Object
Description: Wooden carrying vessel, painted red with two white stripes at either end.
Long description: Soft wooden boat-shaped vessel, painted red with two white stripes at either end. The outside and inside has shallow carving grooves. [MJD DDF Body Arts Project 2010/2011 25/08/2010]
Geographical reference: Australia
Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > Australia
Cultural groups: Jingulu
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 Pigment, Process Painted, Process Carved
Dimensions: Width 220 mm, Height 230 mm, Length 845 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1903.39.60 Other numbers: Spencer number 40
Research and responses: S&G 1904: 661 'Pitchis - Wooden bowls and troughs. There is very great variation in the size and form of the pitchis used amongst the central tribes. In the first place they can be divided into two groups according to the material out of which they are made. The one includes the hard and the other the soft wood specimens. The wood usually employed for the former is some kind of Eucalyptus tree, and is often so hard that it is difficult to understand how they can possibly be cut out and fashioned, in some cases, into such a symmetrical form by means of the crude stone implements of the natives. The simplest forms ... follow roughly the outline of the trunk of the tree out of which the slab has been cut ... In other cases the form is more regular; the outer surface has the usual coarse groovings but the inner one is marked with parallel fine grooves ... (I)n the more northern ones .. the great majority of pitchis are of soft wood. This is to be associated with the fact that the bean-tree out of which the soft wood is obtained is much more prevalent in the northern than in the southern area. .... The soft wood pitchis are much more easily made. The wood of the bean-tree is so easily cut that there is comparatively little difficulty in first of all obtaining a block of wood and then chipping it down roughly to the required shape. The latter, however, varies much according to the purpose for which it is intended to be used. There are two main types of soft pitchis - one being trough- and the other boat-shaped. The first type ... may be either very shallow with almost flat open ends or the ends and the sides may be curved up to a greater or lesser extent ... As a general rule the outer surface is marked by fine groovings which run parallel to one another from end to end ... All of these soft wood pitchis are typically covered externally with red ochre and not infrequently they may be decorated with designs drawn in yellow ochre, charcoal and white pipe-clay. Except so far as size is concerned there is very little variation in regard to the boat-shaped pitchis. Their outer surface is always covered with fine parallel grooves and the inner with coarser ones ... They are always constructed so that they will stand upright on the ground, and can be rocked about from side to side without easily overturning. They are used for carrying food and water, but for the latter purpose the trough with inturned upper edges is the most useful form.'
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: These vessels are used by women for collecting yams. They are also used for storing the bones of deceased persons in trees. [MJD 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.

Search terms: Vessel, Food and Drink, Carrying Device, Food, Coffin Box