Collection online

basket

• Object type

  • basket

• Museum number

  Oc1939,08.37

• Description

  Basket made of vegetable fibre. Closely twined with complex painted decoration in white, red and dark green ochre, covering two thirds of basket leaving one section plain.

• Ethnic name

  • Made by Aboriginal Australian

• Date

  • 1900-1912 (circa)

• Findspot

  • Found/Acquired: Port Essington
  • (Oceania,Australia,Northern Territory (Australia),Port Essington)

• Materials

  • ochre
  • human hair
  • fibre

• Technique

  • twined (basketry)
  • pigmented (natural)

• Dimensions

  • Height: 47.3 centimetres
  • Width: 21 centimetres
  • Diameter: 8.6 centimetres (base)

• Curator's comments

  Register 1939
  Collected by H P Rogers, ornithologist, before 1914, in Australia.

  Port Essington.Image of basket published in Cranstone, B.A.L. (1973), 'The Australian Aborigines', p.20 fig. 9Baskets were, and still are, made in this region by both men and women. They are often painted, and ancestral knowledge is passed on through the designs and through the significance of the colours used.

  The design references the annual visits of Makassan fishermen to the northern coast of Australia. The white rectangular forms, with horizontal red stripes, are the sails of Makassan praus. The white diagonal crosses against a red background refer to women’s breast girdles, which represent the blooming clouds of the wet season, when the Makassan ships would arrive.

  More 

• Bibliography

  • Bolton 2011 p.18
  • Sculthorpe et al. 2015 p.28, fig.5

• Location

  Not on display

• Exhibition history

  Exhibited:
  2011 26 May-11 Sep, London, BM, G91, Baskets and Belonging: Indigenous Australian Histories
  2015 23 Apr-2 Aug, London, BM, G35, Indigenous Australia: enduring civilisation

• Acquisition name

  • Donated by: Gregory M Mathews
  • Field Collection by: John P Rogers (1911-1912)

• Acquisition date

  1939

• Acquisition notes

  Register reads, for collection Oc1939,08: Collected by H P Rogers, ornithologist, before 1914, in Australia. However inspection of the original correspondence from Mathews reveals that this should be J P Rogers, who was Mathews' ornithological collector in Northern Australia. Thought to be collected in 1911-1912.

• Department

  Africa, Oceania & the Americas

• Registration number

  Oc1939,08.37