bag;
stimulant/narcotic equipment
- Museum number
- Oc1897,-.637
- Description
-
Bag made of human hair string, containing pituri.
- Production date
- 19thC (before 1897)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 25 centimetres
-
Width: 13 centimetres
-
Depth: 10.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- This is one of four bags of pituri which the British Museum purchased from Finucane, along with other Aboriginal objects, during a tour of Europe in 1897. Finucane was a collector, who as part of his role as chief clerk of the Queensland Police Department, established the Queensland Police Museum.
The 'Queenslander' newspaper announced news of Finucane’s pituri collection in 1891, including mention of the hair string bag:
‘A very fine collection of pituri has just been received from Birdsville by Mr. Finucane, of the Police Department. It consists of eight bags of various sizes, made in the shape usually adopted for carrying long distances. The pituri is a grass which is dried and cut into chaff and carried in these peculiar bags. When prepared it is an intoxicant. It is made up by first chewing it, then mixing it with the ashes of the dried leaves of a plant which Mr. Finucane has also received. The chewed chaff and ashes are then worked well together either in a round or an oblong shape, and are then ready for a second chewing. This chewing, it is said, produces intoxication. The bags at one time were made of a local fibre, but since their intercourse with white people the blacks make the bags upon the threads of old blankets or rags. One of the bags, however, is made of human hair, and is a curiosity in itself. Mr. Finucane has received also other articles illustrative of the habits of the aborigines of Central Australia.’
The Queenslander, 28 November 1891, p1050.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1972-1982 23 Jun-28 Feb, London, BM, Museum of Mankind, The Aborigines of Australia
2015-2016 27 Nov-28 Mar, Canberra, National Museum of Australia, Encounters
- Acquisition date
- 1897
- Acquisition notes
- One of four pituri bags purchased on 10th September 1897 from William Finucane for £10 by Charles Hercules Read (Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography at the British Museum 1896-1921).
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1897,-.637
- Additional IDs
-
CDMS number: Oc1897C3.637 (old CDMS no.)
