Museums across Great Britain and Ireland hold Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (collectively referred to as ‘Indigenous’) cultural heritage of exceptional value, but which is largely unknown, rarely seen, and poorly understood. Gifted, sold, exchanged, and bartered by Indigenous people, and accepted, bought, collected, and taken by travelers, colonists, explorers, missionaries, officials and others, these rare objects date from Captain Cook in 1770 to the present day. Numbering over 35,000 items, they represent all regions of Australia’s vast landmass, from deserts, islands, and coasts to tropical rainforests.
The book uses nearly 160 artifacts, selected from over 30 public museums, both large metropolitan and small regional, to present a multi-stranded narrative that opens up vistas on Britain’s Australian history as much as Australia’s British history.
More than twenty Indigenous, Australian, and international experts weave together deeply-contextualized accounts of objects and object-types; of makers, communities, and regions; and of collectors, networks, and institutions, while also exploring the meanings and importance of this material in Australia, Britain and Ireland, and the world today.
Distanced from their places of origin and dispersed throughout Britain and Ireland, these objects are gathered together for the first time. Out of museum stores and into this book, they are evidence of the complex, and often difficult, relationships between Indigenous Australians and British people and institutions, as well as being powerful conduits for telling that history anew and in ways that seek to challenge and rework its legacies.
Foreword: Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge)
Section I – Encountering objects
1.Introduction Gaye Sculthorpe (British Museum) Maria Nugent (Australian National University), and Howard Morphy (Australian National University)
2. Assemblages: Researching and interpreting dispersed Indigenous Australian objects and collections (Gaye Sculthorpe and Maria Nugent)
Section II – Moving objects
3. Reciprocity: Artefacts of Aboriginal trade and exchange Philip Jones (South Australian Museum)
4. Travels with Bennelong: collecting in early colonial Sydney Maria Nugent (Australian National University)
5. String ecologies: Indigenous country and pastoral empires Jilda Andrews (National Museum of Australia & Australian National University)
6. Naval Pathways: Tracing objects from nineteenth century Royal Naval voyages Daniel Simpson (Royal Holloway University of London)
7. Excellent judgement: bark paintings in the National Museum of Scotland Howard Morphy (Australian National University), Antje Denner (National Museums Scotland), and Bree Blakeman (Australian National University)
8. Indigenous Afterlives in Britain Gaye Sculthorpe (British Museum)
Section III – Telling objects
9. You are on Aboriginal land: interpreting gifts of stone Matt Poll (University of Sydney)
10. Visitors to the rainforest: Engagements and encounters in far north Queensland Lissant Bolton (British Museum)
11. Life in death: Funerary and mourning objects Julie Finlayson (Australian National University)
12. History by design in the Kimberley Shino Konishi (University of Western Australia) and Alistair Paterson (University of Western Australia)
13. Silent testimonials': shields from Queensland frontiers Gaye Sculthorpe (British Museum)
Section IV – Unsettling objects
14. Exile and punishment in Van Diemen's Land Gaye Sculthorpe (British Museum)
15. Intimate Relations: Objects from the Port Phillip District Penelope Edmonds (Flinders University)
16. Woven lives
I: Women's objects in colonial South Australia (Maria Nugent and Gaye Sculthorpe);
II: Threads of reckoning / An Afterword (Natalie Harkin, Flinders University)
17. New postings? The Swan River Colony Tiffany Shellam (Deakin University) and Shona Coyne (National Museum of Australia)
18. Rough justice in the northwest Ian Coates (National Museum of Australia) & Peter Yu (Australian National University)
Section V – Performing objects
19. Unmasking the Torres Strait: objects and relationships Chantal Knowles (Monash University)
20. Slow awakenings: Institutional engagements with Indigenous art Howard Morphy (Australian National University) & Gaye Sculthorpe (British Museum)
21. 'Strange and complicated feats with string' Robyn McKenzie (Australian National University)
22. Show people: Objects of popular performance Maria Nugent (Australian National University)
23. 'Three boomerangs…shillling for each': Linking objects and images from Moreton Bay Michael Aird (University of Queensland)
Afterword: Howard Morphy, Maria Nugent, Gaye Sculthorpe
Appendix 1 Museums with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections
Appendix 2 Finding guide to collections
Appendix 3 Researching collections
Further Reading
Image credits
Acknowledgements
Index
Gaye Sculthorpe is Curator and Section Head, Oceania, The British Museum and a leading scholar of Indigenous Australian material culture. In 2015, she curated the BP exhibition Indigenous Australia: enduring civilisation. Prior to taking up this position in 2013, she worked as a Member of the National Native Tribunal in Australia.
Maria Nugent is Research Fellow, Australia National University.
Howard Morphy is Research Professor of Anthropology, Australia National University.
