IDNO

LS.109195.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Australia.
Warramunga.
Mourning ceremonies. Women embracing and wailing after cutting their heads.”

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.418.ACH1: “Women wailing after cutting heads. Warramunga. North T.C.A. fig.139.”

Group of Waramanga (Warramunga) women wailing huddled together after having cut their scalps with yam sticks. Many of the women are covered in white pipe clay?. Their yam sticks are scattered on the ground. There is a child in the background.
The landscape in the background consists of shrubbery. [WV 20/2/2009, from record , JD 24/8/2012]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Australia; Central Australia

Cultural Affliation

Warramunga

Named Person

Photographer

Baldwin Spencer, Walter; or Gillen, Francis James

Collector / Expedition

Northern Tribes of Central Australia fieldwork by Baldwin Spencer, Walter and Gillen, Francis James [March 1901 - March 1902]

Date

March 1901 - March 1902

Collection Name

Teaching Slide CollectionHaddon Unmounted Collection

Source

?Haddon, Alfred Cort (Dr)

Format

Lantern Slide Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Publication: Image published in Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 525, fig. 139 with the following caption:
“Women embracing and wailing after cutting their heads during the mourning ceremonies. Warramunga tribe.” [WV 20/2/2009]

Photographer: Note in Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1927, p. xiii states all photos were taken by the authors. [WV 23/1/2009]

Cultural Group: Baldwin Spencer and Gillen describe the Waramanga [Warramunga] nation as including the Warramunga, Worgaia, Tjingilli, Umbaia, Bingongina, Walpari, Wulmala, and Gnanji tribes. (Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 75). [WV 10/2/2009]

Context: The wailing during mourning is described as follows by Baldwin Spencer and Gillen:
“After a few minutes the man left, and the women set to work wailing and cutting their scalps. When this had gone on for some time they once more got up and approached the lubras’ camp, where forty or fifty women were assembled. The latter came out in small bands of perhaps six or eight at a time, every individual carrying a yam-stick (Fig. 138). After a series of sham fights they all sat down in groups with their arms round one another, weeping and wailing frantically (Fig. 139), while the actual and tribal wives, mothers, wives’ mothers, daughters, sisters, mothers’ mothers, sisters’ husbands’ mothers, and granddaughters. according to custom, once more cut their scalps open with yam-sticks. In addition to all this the actual widows afterwards seared the scalp wound with a red-hot fire-stick.” (Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 542). [WV 20/2/2009]