Item X 97100 Aykar | Ornament, head. Aurukun, West Cape York, Queensland, Australia

Summary

This type of string ornament was worn by a widow during the formal period of mourning for the death of her husband. The anthropologist Donald Thomson collected similarly knotted string objects worn by women at Aurukun in the early 1930s.

Local Name

Aykar

Physical Description

A mourning ornament made of three strands of vegetable fibre string that are doubled over at one end and the ends held together with resin embedded with abrus seeds. Another section of resin and seeds is set in the centre and the strings in between are knotted at equal intervals.