IDNO

LS.109208.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: "Australia.
Warramunga.
Final Burial Ceremonies. Placing the arm-bone in the ground and filling the little pit with earth."

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.417.ACH1: "Burial of bone in ground. Warramunga. North T.C.A. fig.152."

Group of three Waramanga (Warramunga) men. One man, decorated with white down on his back, is burying the arm-bone of a deceased woman. The pit is covered over with a stone called palpalla. In the background a totemic design has been drawn upon the ground representing the spot at which the totemic ancestor finally went into the earth. Two men are huddled together on the right. In the background an enclosure? has been constructed from dried leaves? The landscape consists of shrubbery. [WV 20/2/2009, from record P.417.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. 152 with the following caption:
"Final burial ceremonies. Placing the bone in the ground and filling the little pit with earth." [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 burrying of the bone is described as follows by Baldwin Spencer and Gillen:
"The moment that the women heard, though they were not allowed to see, the blow of the axe, they fled away, shrieking, over the creek to their camp, and there in the distance we could hear them wailing. Most of the men went silently to their camps, but for some time the father, together with a few other men of his own side of the tribe, remained seated on the ground by the side of the little grave (Fig. 152).
The pit in which the bone is buried and covered over with a stone is called palpalla, as is also the totemic design drawn upon the ground representing the spot at which the totemic ancestor finally went into the earth." (Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 542). [WV 20/2/2009]