Aus Aboriginal club+shield

[Tim Simmons]

Hoping for some help here. I have these two pieces coming to me. Obviously they are not 19th century. The photographs show the whole thing but that is about all. There is the slightest hint in the pictures indicating the items are not new and may have some vintage. The seller is not a antique or collector dealer but did suggest a Warumungu origin. That is central western desert, Northern Territory, around Tennant Creek, pretty much a frontier until the 1930s. Information on the form of the shield is proving hard to find. However the Pitt-Rivers has information on painted shields of the region and suggests forms do vary. The shield is around 86 cm x 9 cm the club is 111 cm. I do not know much about inter tribal conflict circa mid 20th century. The painting would suggest to me ceremonial objects. I am not an expert but they do not look like tourist trade work. Combing Australian museums and Aboriginal art collections I am starting to feel I mayhave some artwork I would not be able to afford had I bought from a gallery. Clearly better pictures are needed. I will add information as I get it in replies but if you know more please add.

[Tim Simmons]

Lifted from the Pitt-Rivers Oxford;

Central Australian groups, including the Arrernte (also known as the Arunta), Luritja (Luritcha), Wakaya (Waagai), Warlpiri (Ilpirra or Warlbiri), Walmajarri and Warumungu (Warramunga), employed elongated oval-shaped convex shields made from a light soft wood called Sturt's bean tree (Erythrina vespertilio). Today these shields are found in most Western Australian desert communities as a result of exchange systems involving engraved pearl shell ornaments and the introduction of metal tools, a fact which allowed other Western Australian Aboriginal groups to manufacture shields for themselves. Gifted with considerable manipulative skills, traditional Central Australian shield makers used the flint of spear-throwers (instruments which allowed spears to be thrown with more force and accuracy), to furrow the long parallel grooves which characteristically ran with almost faultless evenness across the shield's surface. If a shield cracked or needed mending, the shield maker bored holes through the broken parts and tied them together with wet fiber so that they lashed on more tightly upon drying.

Central Australian shields primarily served as defensive weapons against spears and boomerangs, however the Arrernte, Warlpiri and Luritja specially valued them as their principal means for obtaining fire. Placing the shield face down and holding it steady with their feet, two squatting men would rub the shield in a rapid sawing movement using the bladed edge of a spear-thrower. After the charred surface begins to glow, the men would blow or fan it into a flame. Often utilized to restart other fires, the multiple grooves on the reverse side of the shield on the right shows signs of use in this manner. The Arrernte also believed that shields carried powers of divination and by ringing hollow, forewarned the bearers that death was close at hand. An undated photograph published by Walter Hutchinson in his Customs of the World book series shows Arrernte women striking the shields of men who had just taken part at an avenging party.

Kim Akerman at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, notes that the carved-out handles of central Australian shields were also used as vessels for certain rites involving blood-letting. Particularly important was the kutitji (shield) ritual, a type of circumcision ceremony conducted in a camp before a preselect group just before boys were taken away for circumcision. Originating from the Warlpiri people in the western desert region of Central Australia or possibly further east among the Kaytetye (or Kaytitj) near Tennant Creek, the observance of this ceremony has since spread into Western Australia, La Grange and the Eighty Mile Beach regions.

Although Central Australian groups did not specifically identify utilitarian objects with their owners, they painted shield surfaces with totemic-bearing symbols. Nancy Munn has written extensively about Central Australian Warlpiri iconography, basing her findings on interviews with local informants: concentric circles painted on objects such as shields and tywerrenge (or churinga, a term applying to something sacred or secret) relate to camps (water holes), meandering lines to snakes (lightning and smoke), and multiple dots around concentric circles to eggs (rain and clouds). Moreover, Munn points out that multiple elements like clusters of dots or circles suggest fecundity and reproduction. In the case of the shield on the right, the alternative symbolic equivalence of the circle (meandering) line is female-male and the cluster of dots as progeny or children eloquently combine ideas of procreation and transgenerational continuity, notions pre-eminent in male cults.

[Shamsy]

Good morning Tim,

You have some nice looking pieces there. A digging stick and a shield. The shields are quite amazing and require a lot of skill to use. The idea is to use the wedge shape to deflect an incoming spear either left or right of your body. I have seen how fast and accurate a spear is thrown and can tell you this is no mean feat!

I recently attended the Melbourne museum and was able to walk through a display dedicated to Aboriginal history. The artifacts there were for the most part unpainted, much more utility and less show. The painting on the digging stick would obviously be contemporary since that would be the equivalent of painting a spade head. I'd probably say that would entirely be contemporary. Boomerang, digging sticks and clubs are all fairly common here. I have a couple myself. The shield... well not so common. That could be ssomewhat older, but while Aboriginal people may sell art freely, older objects are hard to come by. Once you have it in hand you'll be able to look for signs of age.

[Tim Simmons]

Thank you, Until arrival.

[Tim Simmons]

From the national museum Australia, collected 1936.

[Tim Simmons]

more

[Tim Simmons]

Here now. I am very pleased with the outcome. I am showing the " digging stick" next to a Fijian pole club a few cm longer than the "digging stick" which is 111cm. If you have handled Fijian pole clubs you will know they are made from heavy hard wood. The "digging stick" weight is 1.517kg a little heavier than the pole club at 1.432kg. After research I was expecting the shield to be made of a light soft wood. This shield is made of a heavy hard wood weighing 2.247kg. Both items show vintage and do not look like recent tourist work. The paint is not modern polymer paint, I say this as I paint myself, landscape in oils. The shield has many tool marks, I have scrutinised these marks with a x10 loop and cannot make up my mind as to whether these marks are from a metal rasp or file or the scraping and juddering over and over again of a simple tool such as a sharped flatted iron nail or glass or stone tool or a combination of all. The stick shows repair with a resinous substance. It is very difficult to show all the subtleties through a camera on to a PC. Knowing the area was just a telegraph outpost with a couple of huts until mining in the 1930s I see no reason not to think the pieces to be from at least the mid 20th century. I add one of my paintings, West Bay looking to Burton Bradstock, so that I do not appear to BS.

[VANDOO]

THEY BOTH LOOK GOOD TO ME SHOWING AGE AND USE, THE WOODS USED IN AUSTRALIA PATINA SLOWER AND DIFFERENT FROM THE FIJI CLUB DUE TO CLIMATE AS WELL AS THE WOODS PROPERTY'S. IF THE WEIGHT IS MORE THAN A FIJI BOWAI I SUSPECT IT IS MORE OF A CLUB THAN A DIGGING STICK. I LIKE THE PAINT DESIGNS ON BOTH ITEMS AND THE SHIELD HAS AN ESPECIALLY INTERESTING PATTERN WHICH NO DOUBT TELLS A STORY AS WELL AS HAS TRIBAL AND PERHAPS PERSONNEL IDENTIFICATION. CONGRATULATIONS NICE ITEMS.

[Shamsy]

I would still politely disagree with any suggestion that the digging stick is a Waddy. Aboriginal clubs almost all have a heavy end, typically a root or fork in a branch, whereas digging sticks tend to be thick, heavy wood, one end pointed to dig, one flattened for the hand to rest on and a homogeneous cylindrical shaft.

While hardly the most reliable source ever, if you google image search a digging stick, then compare this to a search of waddy or nulla nulla, you will see the differences. Being no expert in paint I cannot comment, but remembering that aboriginal paint was mostly formed with ochre which is a rather chalky medium, that should give you a good indication of the age of the decorations. Likewise colors are a great way to date work, as the Aboriginal people used a limited palate based on available hues.

[Tim Simmons]

Yes all good points. However I do not think there is a rule book on club forms. As for the paints, the colours are not beyond those that can be made from ochres. Also we do not know what was used as a binder, which in this case may be lasting well since the pieces have not been in Aboriginal use. There are areas showing distress of the paint. Google is a marvelous tool for research but it is rather selective. What ever the books say about weapon forms there are always forms that differ from those standard and commonly known and collected. This link is lightly informative if you explore the highlighted.

http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/methods/methods.php

[Shamsy]

All are excellent points. Even in the most known of topics there are outliers and exceptions. Aboriginal weaponry is a topic that is sadly lacking and receives little interest even in Australia. I'm glad you are interested and there's plenty of room for research and writing on the subject. I find it an interesting topic, especially as it is still very much in the pioneer stage.

[Tim Simmons]

There are big heavy ceremonial digging sticks used to dig water holes. The digging of the water hole is in some ways like the black rod knocking to open the British parliament. Also the water is needed to drink and so on. So it could be one of these.

[Tim Simmons]

Lifted from the National Museum Australia.

The digging stick

Another powerful item that the Djang'kawu brought to Yalangbara was the ceremonial digging stick mawalan (also wapitja and djota), used to create freshwater holes on their travels.

The term mawalan can refer to either a digging stick or a paddle, because the oars were used by the Djang'kawu during their sea voyage to Yalangbara to create freshwater pools at various places in the sea.

Once on land, the Sisters continued to create freshwater wells by plunging their mawalan into the previously barren earth. They did this in each of the Dhuwa clan countries they visited, leaving their mawalan as a symbol of their creativity and authority. The water that it created is likened to 'the fluid or source of Yolngu knowledge'.

To emphasise its embodiment of ritual knowledge and land ownership, the senior Rirratjingu men presented a ceremonial mawalan to the Australian government during the Gove land rights case. They believed that the digging stick piercing the ground to create Djang'kawu law and knowledge was like the parliamentary rod opening the doors of parliament. Both staffs in this context symbolise the gaining of entry to culturally different, though equivalent, systems of power.

The exhibited digging stick normally displayed in Parliament House next to the famous Yirrkala Bark Petition has been generously loaned for the Yalangbara: Art of the Djang'kawu exhibition.

Although this stick is from Arnhem Land not the central desert I would not be surprised to find similar culture elsewhere.

[VANDOO]

MANY NOMADIC TRIBES CARRIED FEW BELONGINGS SO WHERE POSSIBLE ONE ITEM COULD SERVE MANY PURPOSES. SO THIS COULD BE USED AS A DIGGING STICK, CLUB, CEREMONIAL OBJECT OR ANY OTHER NEEDED PURPOSE.
THE FIJI BOWAI MAKES A GOOD WAR CLUB AND IF THIS ABORIGINAL CLUB IS HEAVIER AND ALMOST AS LONG IT WOULD CERTAINLY SERVE AS A GOOD HEAD KNOCKER. IF A DIGGING STICK IT SHOWS NO WEAR FROM USE AT EITHER END SO PERHAPS WAS ONLY A CEREMONIAL OBJECT. TRUTH IS WE CAN NEVER BE SURE BUT I WOULD NOT WANT TO BE CONKED WITH IT.

[Tim Simmons]

I have been searching the National Museum of Australia . Entering club into the data base and found this example at 1070mm so a little shorter than mine. This example shows the same damage as mine. The only other information is ; JW Lindo collection.
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[Tim Simmons]

More information that kind of fits my hypothesis that my items are at the very least from the first half of the 20th century perhaps even before the 1930s. Here is an extract from; Hunting the collectors, Pacific collections in the Australian museum of art.

Sir Charles Murr a commonwealth government minister, presented two model canoes he had been given by " native chiefs of Bouganville" as noted AIA catalogue card, and finally a large collection of both Aboriginal and Pacific material was received in 1935 or 1936 donated by South Australian pastoralist JW Lindo.

[Tim Simmons]

A link about shields all be it about revival in the rain forest region. It does have some information about paint.
http://earthsci.org/aboriginal/ngadj...a%20Shield.htm