Courtesy Queensland Museum
Accession Number: QE1975
Museum: Queensland Museum
Date Acquired:
Collector: Archibald Meston (1851-1924)
Date Collected: c.1900
Where from: Cape Bedford
Description: L380 x W190 x D7mm
Bag made from looped natural fibre with traditional dyes. Made by an Aborginal woman from the Cape Bedford area around 1897 and collected by Archibald Meston (1851-1924) ‘Protectors of Aborigines’, the same year that the Queensland Government implemented the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of Sale of Opium Act in 1897 to ‘protect and control’ Aboriginal people. Those appointed as ‘Protectors of Aborigines’ such as Meston and Dr Walter Edmund Roth (1861-1933) collected artefacts from across Queensland, particularly Cape York Peninsula. Originally at Elim in 1885, the Cape Bedford Mission included groups relocated from as far north as Cape Melville and as far south as Cooktown. In 1942 they were unexpectedly evacuated to Woorabinda Aboriginal Community in southern Queensland when World War ll threatened Australia’s coastline. Many died from exposure to disease and influenza. Those who survived returned to their traditional country in 1949 and reconstructed, on a new site, the Lutheran Mission at Hope Valley. Now called Hopevale. (Trish Barnard, Senior Curator Indigenous Studies, 2012).
See: ‘Archibald Meston’ authored by Russell McGregor