IDNO

LS.109214.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: "Australia.
Arunta.
Women’s Corrobboree. Women in distance and men seated and beating time."

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.368.ACH1: "Women’s corrobboree. Women in distance, seated men beating time. Arunta. North. T.C.A. p.720."

Group of Aranda (Arunta) women participating in a corrobboree. Each woman is decorated with a broad, white band of rabbit down across her forehead and wears a rabbit down long string, hanging from the head-band over the shoulders on each side. Every performer has a double continuous band of plant running across the forehead and over the bridge of the nose. The other decorations consist of lines of the same, the design varying on the different performers. In all there is a series running from the top of the shoulder on to the breast, where, except in one instance, they terminate abruptly against the upper side of an oblong drawn transversely across the breast. Other lines run between these from side to side across the chest. On the upper part of the abdomen there is an isolated design which usually has the form of an oblong with one or more lines running horizontally across it. In one case the design had the form of a horse-shoe, and in the other of an inverted T. On each thigh there is drawn an elongated ellipse. A group of five men are sitting in the foreground.
The landscape consists of a shrubbery and a few small trees. [WV 5/2/2009, from record P.368.ACH1, JD 24/8/2012]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Australia; Central Australia

Cultural Affliation

Arunta

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: Similar image published in Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 721, fig. 292, with the following caption:
"Women’s corrobboree. Arunta tribe." [WV 5/2/2009]

Expedition: Baldwin Spencer and Gillen spent one year from March 1901 to March 1902 in a traverse from Oodnadatta to Powell Creek and then across, eastwards to Borraloola at the mouth of the Macarthur River, on the Gulf of Carpentaria. (Baldwin Spencer, W., 1928. Wanderings in Wild Australia (Macmillan, London), Vol. 1, p. xvi). [WV 10/2/2009]

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]

Context: The decoration of the women on their corrobboree is described as follows:
"As a general rule it is only the men who are decorated for these dances, but there are certain of them which are performed by women. The decoration of the bodies of the latter during one of these was quite unlike that seen at any time on the men. In the first place, there was no helmet. Each woman had a broad, white band of down across her forehead, - in this case obtained form the rabbit, which has recently invaded the central area. The white fur on its tail is much appreciated by the natives for decorative purposes.
Each woman wore also a long string, made out of the same material, hanging pendent from the head-band over the shoulders on each side. Altogether the decorations of the women shown in the photograph must have represented several hundred rabbits (Fig. 292). Every performer had a double continuous band of plant running across the forehead and over the bridge of the nose. The other decorations consisted of lines of the same, the design varying to a certain extent on the different performers. In all there was a series running from the top of the shoulder on to the breast, where, except in one instance, they terminated abruptly against the upper side of an oblong drawn transversely across the breast. Other lines ran between these from side to side across the chest. On the upper part of the abdomen there was an isolated design which usually had the form of an oblong with one or more lines running horizontally across it. In one case the design had the form of a horse-shoe, and in the other of an inverted T. On each thigh there was drawn an elongated ellipse." (Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1904. The northern tribes of central Australia. (London), p. 720-722). [WV 5/2/2009]