Context (Auction / Sale)
This file contains information and images relating to Indigenous men’s sacred ceremonies and sacred objects.



Date: June 1924 – Jan 1926
Letters from E Clement – Drawings of Aboriginal artefacts
Letter 1
7 Hove Lodge Mansions, Hove/Sussex
Letter – June 10th, 1924
Clement writes to offer more material to the Museum – he has squatter friends a squatter on the Upper Sherlock River in Australia– 200 items.
Includes references to two Bolas (worn around head in Corroboree a solid ring of reeds with human hair string wound around) in the collection come from the Inawonga Tribe that lives S. East of the Ingibandi Tribe’.’p. 3 (NW Aust area [confirms this in sketches] around Derby)

Letter 2
7th January 1926
Talks about Pearl Shell Churingas from the Piduringa Tribe of NW Australia. Includes sketches of ‘Churingas’. These are wooden sacred objects and two look like bullroarers.

Some coloured sketches are important records and are of good quality, giving tribe names. This is an interesting collection and some good documentation – photos are held aswell – may be of interest to the community.

However Clement’s 1926 suggestion that he had sold MAA a collection of Australian Aboriginal objects in the 1900s is incorrect. The 1926 offer was not taken up by CUMAA. Therefore CUMAA does not hold any Aboriginal objects acquired from Clement.

He had sold the museum a collection of Bronze-age pots from Silesia in 1889/90.

CUMAA do hold a small collection of photographs acquired from Clement – it appears these were sent in the early 1900s and not returned.

From Notes by Ian Coates, Senior Curator - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program, National Museum of Australia, 19 May 2008

12/02/2020
Created by: rachel hand on 12/02/2020

Context ()
This file contains information and images relating to Indigenous men’s sacred ceremonies and sacred objects.



Date: June 1924 – Jan 1926
Letters from E Clement – Drawings of Aboriginal artefacts
Letter 1
7 Hove Lodge Mansions, Hove/Sussex
Letter – June 10th, 1924
Clement writes to offer more material to the Museum – he has squatter friends a squatter on the Upper Sherlock River in Australia– 200 items.
Includes references to two Bolas (worn around head in Corroboree a solid ring of reeds with human hair string wound around) in the collection come from the Inawonga Tribe that lives S. East of the Ingibandi Tribe’.’p. 3 (NW Aust area [confirms this in sketches] around Derby)

Letter 2
7th January 1926
Talks about Pearl Shell Churingas from the Piduringa Tribe of NW Australia. Includes sketches of ‘Churingas’. These are wooden sacred objects and two look like bullroarers.

Some coloured sketches are important records and are of good quality, giving tribe names. This is an interesting collection and some good documentation – photos are held aswell – may be of interest to the community.

However Clement’s 1926 suggestion that he had sold MAA a collection of Australian Aboriginal objects in the 1900s is incorrect. The 1926 offer was not taken up by CUMAA. Therefore CUMAA does not hold any Aboriginal objects acquired from Clement.

He had sold the museum a collection of Bronze-age pots from Silesia in 1889/90.

CUMAA do hold a small collection of photographs acquired from Clement – it appears these were sent in the early 1900s and not returned.

From Notes by Ian Coates, Senior Curator - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program, National Museum of Australia, 19 May 2008

12/02/2020
Created by: rachel hand on 12/02/2020

Description (CMS Description)
Letters from E. Clement re possibility of selling Aboriginal artefacts to CUMAE, with set of drawings of letter sticks, churinga [?], spears, shields, etc., with tribe of origin marked.
01/06/1998
Created by: maa on 01/06/1998