IDNO

LS.109202.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Australia.
Warramunga.
Burial Customs. Group of women waiting in camp until summoned to the ceremonial ground. One with her face daubed over with pipe-clay has the arm-bone in its case between her legs, another has a pitchi containing the cooked snakes which will be given to the old men.”

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.416.ACH1: “Woman with arm bone. Warramunga. North T.C.A. fig.144a.”

On Catalogue Card for P.455.ACH1: “Warramunga tribe. Old woman with
1. armbone of dead man wrapped in bark
2. Pitcher with snakes as food offering to men.”
On Catalogue Card: “Woman with arm bone. Warramunga. North T.C.A. fig.144a.”
Group of six Waramanga (Warramunga) women waiting in camp until summoned to the ceremonial ground. One woman has her face daubed over with pipe clay and holds the arm-bone in its case between her legs. Another woman has a pitchi (container) containing cooked snakes which will be given to the old men. The women have their foreheads covered with pipe clay. The women are sitting on a skin rug?. There are a few dogs? running around. The landscape in the background consists of shrubbery and small trees. [WV 20/2/2009, from record P.416.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. 534, fig. 144a with the following caption:
“Group of old women waiting in camp until summoned to the ceremonial ground. One with her face daubed over with pipe-clay has the arm-bone in its case between her legs, another has a pitchi containing cooked snakes which will be given to the old men.” [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 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)... The handing over of the bone was the signal for the women to kneel down (Fig. 147), and while the men bent prostrate in silence over it, the women broke out into a loud, piercing wail which became louder still when the father passed the bone behind him to an old Tjapeltjeri woman in whose charge it was to remain until the final ceremony took place.” (Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 530-532). [WV 19/2/2009]