iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

A lovely vintage shot of ceremony with a very interesting original description:



This kind of dramatic description really seemed to define early 20th century travel photography, as photographers tried to convey the intensity of a single moment.

I'm unsure of where this was taken- the palms in the background suggest NEAL but maybe Melville or Bathurst Islands?

Nice pic Jason. The description is indeed dramatic, perhaps incorrect as they usually were in those days. Clues as to where the pic was taken could be found in the spears and pointed baskets mentioned in the description. I can't quite see them well enough to make a confident guess, but pointed baskets suggest the Tiwi Islands where they are known as Tunga. The other alternative is Far North Queensland where they had lovely bicornual baskets known as Jawun.

The part about the spears not having heads... that's got me stumped! Maybe this might be a reference to barbed spears...

One other possibility is Port Essington if the pic is from 1920s. Not many parts of the NT were explored in those early days.

That makes sense, actually-- it's possible that these were just the shafts without the compound foreshaft or that it's a complete barbed spear without an obvious spearhead.

Jason, is it possible to get close-ups of the baskets? They kinda look like dilly bags or men's 'fighting bags' but at this scale it isn't easy to tell.

I'll see if I can get a higher-res version, or if I can res it-up myself in Photoshop for some increased detail.

Jason