tour 15 of 16
The Pacific: Gods and People
Bark shield
This bark shield has been identified,
reasonably convincingly, as having been collected in 1770 on
Captain Cook's First Voyage in HMS
Endeavour (1768-71). It
is, to date, the only Australian artefact in the British Museum
that has been ascribed to the
voyages.
The shield has
very few distinguishing features, but these do seem to tally with a
contemporary illustration and description. The naturalist Sir
Joseph Banks wrote in his journal: 'Defensive weapons we
saw only in Sting-Rays [Botany] bay and there only a single
instance - a man who attempted to oppose our Landing came down to
the Beach with a shield of an oblong shape about 3 feet long and 1½
broad made of the bark of a tree; this he left behind when he ran
away and we found upon taking it up that it plainly had been
pierced through with a single pointed lance near the
centre.'
Such a
hole, close to the handle, is visible on this shield. There is also
a sketch by John Frederick Miller dated 1771, after the sketch by
Sydney Parkinson, the
Endeavour's
official artist, which depicts a shield with a hole in it, just
like this one.