1903.39.36

Collection type

Object

Description

Bone gouge, possibly kangaroo, split in half length ways and shaped at one end.

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 Bone, Process Carved

Dimensions

Length: max 168 mm, Width 28 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1903.39.36 Other numbers: Spencer number 19

Research and responses

S&G 1904: 676 'Gouges are made by splitting a strong bone, such as the femur of a kangaroo, and then grinding down one or both ends. In this way a very efficient tool is secured. They vary a good deal in size, the longest in our possession measuring 10 inches in length ... a second one measures 6 1/4 inches in length ...'. [AP 13/1/2000]

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: Tool, Gouge