IDNO

LS.109201.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Australia.
Warramunga.
Funeral Ceremony. Wrapping the arm-bone up in paper bark.”

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.413.ACH1: “Wrapping arm bone in park. North T.C.A. fig. 144. Warramunga.”

Group of three Waramanga (Warramunga) wrapping the arm bone of a deceased woman into paper bark. The man carrying out the wrapping twines fur string around the bundle. One end is decorated with a bunch of emu feathers, and the whole is made into a torpedo-shaped parcel (burumburu) eighteen inches long and about four inches in diameter.
There is a dog? on the right. The landscape in the background consists of ant hills?, grasses. shrubbery and small trees. [WV 20/2/2009, from record P.413.ACH1, 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. 533, fig. 144 with the following caption:
“Wrapping the arm-bone up in paper bark. 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 raking out of bone of grave is described as follows:
“Early one morning, before sunrise, we started off to visit the grave of a Tjunguri woman who had been placed on the tree platform a year before. The party consisted of only three natives, two Thapungarti men who were brothers of the mother of the dead woman’s husband, and one Tjambin man who was her tribal son. Just as we left the camp, where all was perfectly quiet, an old Tjapeltjeri man, the father of the dead woman, came up and gave a ball of fur-string to the elder of the two Thapungarti men. The tree was about a mile and a half away from the camp, and on reaching the spot the Tjambin cut a bark dish from a gum-tree close by and then climbed up on to the platform (Fig. 141). With the aid of a stick, so as to avoid actually touching the bones, he raked them all out on to the ground underneath and then clambered down. First of all one of the arm-bones (radius) was placed by itself on some paper bark and put on one side. The rest of the bones were raked into the bark dish by means again of sticks, as they must not be handled (Fig. 142). Then with a few smart blows of a tomahawk the skull was smashed to bits by the Tjambin man - that is, the tribal son, while the two Thapungarti men stood by watching silently. When this was over the former carried the dish with its contents to an ant-hill two or three hundred yards away. here one of the Thapungarti men took hold of the dish and, breaking off the top of the mound, slid the bones down into a hollow cavity in the centre, put the dish above them, and then replaced the top of the ant-hill (Fig. 143). No passer-by, other than perhaps a native, would for a moment suspect the latter to be the grave monument suspect the latter to be the grave monument of a dead black-fellow. The whole ceremony only occupied a very short time, and then, returning to the spot where the arm-bone had been left, the elder Thapungarti took this and wrapped it carefully in paper bark, around which he twined the fur-string given to him by the Tjapertjeri man (Fig. 144). One end was decorated with a bunch of emu feathers (in the case of a man owl feathers are used), and the whole made a torpedo-shaped parcel eighteen inches long and about four inches in diameter. This is called burumburu, and having placed it in the hollow trunk of a gum-tree, the men went off into the scrub in search of game, which they had subsequently to bring in to the father of the dead woman. ” (Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 530-534). [WV 20/2/2009]