Summary

This is a very unusual object, being a continuous length of interlacing rather than a circular armband. Interlacing is not a technique typically associated with Tiwi people. It was most likely collected from one of the Iwaidja people from mainland Arnhem Land that worked for the legendary buffalo shooter, Joe Cooper, at his camp on Melville Island. Cooper hosted Baldwin Spencer on Bathurst and Melville Islands in 1911 having made his acquaintance the year before in Darwin. The collaboration between these two men resulted in over a thousand objects being collected, mainly from Tiwi people on the islands, but also from those mainlanders, primarily Iwadja people working on Cooper's lugger and in his camp. Spencer is known to have purposely purchased a bolt of coloured cloth in Darwin to take with him on this trip to use as a commodity of exchange. No doubt he also traded for important artefacts with sticks of tobacco .

Local Name

Parnti

Physical Description

A continuous length of interlacing made of finely split vine and secured at the ends with vegetable fibre string.

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