PastMasters

The earliest surviving examples of bark painting were collected by Asst. Surgeon Richard Dr. Tilston at Port Essington, prior to his death there, early in 1849. They were collected for the Royal Navy’s Haslar Hospital Museum near Portsmouth, England. Established in the 1820s, Haslar displayed material from around the world, acquired during naval voyages. In the mid-19th century the bulk of the museum’s collections were transferred to other museums and collectors. More than 250 objects, some from Australia, were transferred to the British Museum including these barks. They probably relate to rainbow serpent ceremonies. For more information, see L. Taylor, 'Seeing the Inside. Bark Painting in Western Arnhem Land.'

Territory Treasures come in several tiers. These include historical artefacts and also intangible cultural heritage. Our work at the PMs covers both areas, although we have focused on mysterious items of non-indigenous provenance found on the northern strand. Another tier of Territory Treasures includes those objects whose origins are known but whose significance is under appreciated. Shown here are the message sticks sent by Djapu leader Wonggu to his sons in the Fannie Bay Gaol in the wake of the Caledon Bay crisis of 1935 (which we have reported previously). Wonggu's imprisoned sons had fashioned a small message stick and given it to anthropologist Donald Thomson to prove to their father that Thomson came in peace (and were not on a mission of retribution). Wonggu subsequently sent these message sticks via Thomson back to authorities in Darwin and used carvings—depicting people sitting together with Wonggu at the center—to communicate a call for a peaceful truce and an end to hostilities. Thanks to Harvey Creswell for alerting us. Let us know your ideas for Territory Treasures that we should highlight on these pages.

During WW1, Button Day badges costing 1d were sold for 6d by street sellers and the funds
raised were given to organizations that supported servicemen and war orphans. The organizing and coordinating group were the Loyal Women of Australia and they were based in Adelaide. At least 350 different badges were sold and raised £350,000.
This button from 1918 depicts an indigenous woman known only as Clara of Oodnadatta and she is wearing a popular red polka-dotted headscarf and smoking a pipe. Like many Aboriginal women, Clara worked for the cameleers, but was killed in 1915 near the Oodnadatta police station by her countryman Rosie in a fit of jealousy for making advances to her ‘better half’. Rosie was sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour in the Port Augusta Gaol.
Source: PastMaster Peter Lane, Newsletter of the SA Australiana group.

These mortar and pestle sets from eastern Indonesia (possibly Halmahera) are Territory Treasures. They were found in the Wessel Islands by James Douglas McQueen, ashore from a RAN Patrol Boat in the mid-1970's in a sand dune beside a Tamarind tree damaged in a storm. No similar artifacts have ever been found in Australia and mystery surrounds this discovery. On hearing of the PMs work on the Kilwa coins, James’ brother brought them to our attention with the express wish that they be researched and placed on permanent display in the NT alongside other Territory Treasures.

And the countdown continues… Here’s another Territory Treasure. Mystery surrounds this jar found in Shoal Bay near Darwin by Billy Boustead—former world bare-foot mud crab tying champion—shown here with our team members TS and MH. Of possible Portuguese origin, it was left hanging from a mangrove tree. Eventually the handle broke and it dropped onto the shell ridge below where it remained well above the high water mark until found. The tests conducted, including at the Royal Darwin Hospital—suggest that it is possibly 400-500 years old. If you have discovered items of historical interest in the Top End or even further afield, please share the story with us for identification purposes. Better still, bring them along to the launch of our book on the Territory Treasures where we will be displaying many of the treasures we describe.

The countdown to the launch of our book ‘Territory Treasures’ has begun. Each few days we will post a story on those remarkable centuries-old artefacts found on the NT coastline whose origins may never be fully understood. This is PastMasters co-founder IM with the Dundee Beach swivel gun. Our testing of the contents of the barrel at the University of Melbourne showed that this gun had been lying on the seabed southwest of Darwin for up to 300 years (and we sourced the metals to Andalusia). This was well before the start of the trepang industry, and there has never been any commercial trepanging in this area. Mystery lies at the heart of ‘Territory Treasures,’ the foremost example being Arnhem Land’s African coins.

The estimate of the pre-colonial Indigenous population in Australia has increased substantially, up to 2.2 million or more.

"These research findings challenge us to rethink the scale of what happened after 1788." https://www.sciencealert.com/australias-indigenous-population-was-7-times-larger-than-estimated-study-finds

The stone pictures of Wurrwurrwuy in Lamamirri/Gumatj country south of Nhulunbuy are a Territory Treasure. They are shown here both in 1973 and in our photos from more recent years. A Lamamirri father and son, Yumbul and Dhatalamirri, are credited with creating these pictures during the late 1800s and they depict Macassan praus, canoes, fish traps, and trepang processing camps in Murrnginy lands.