Summary

Lena Uraki, a Limilingan woman from Minitja Association at Kapalga in the Northern Territory, saw this club when she visited the museum in December 1995. Lena said these clubs were used for catching fish and collecting shellfish.

Local Name

Murrukuwunga

Physical Description

An elongated wooden club with a bulbous head and tapering to a point at proximal end. The surface is fluted and painted with natural pigments with bands of red, yellow, white and black.

Significance

This club was collected by Baldwin Spencer, who was hosted on Bathurst and Melville Islands in 1911 by the legendary buffalo shooter, Joe Cooper. The two men had met the year before in Darwin, and their collaboration resulted in over a thousand objects being collected, mainly from Tiwi people on the islands, but also from mainlanders, in particular Iwaidja men and their wives, who worked directly for Cooper on his 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

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