Photographed by Trish Barnard.
Accession Number: QE26309
Museum: Queensland Museum
Date Acquired: 1989
Collector: Gladys Jean Henry (1921-2010)
Date Collected: 1970s
Where from: Murray Upper
Description: This type of boomerang was called Wangal by Jirrbal and Girramay people. You cannot throw a returning boomerang in a dense rainforest so we mainly used boomerangs for fighting, not hunting. The direction a boomerang moved depended on how it was shaped, and could be left or right handed. This particular contemporary boomerang has been decorated with natural pigments (ochre and charcoal) in a stylised design specifically for the tourist market. At her Bellenden property near Tully, Gladys Henry worked closely with the Jirrbal, Girramay and Gulnay people and listened to their concerns that their traditional culture was disappearing. She encouraged them to make artefacts and built a bamboo shed with a concrete floor as a small outlet. The sales of such artefacts provided the Jirrbal, Girramay and Gulnay people with a modest income. This also helped maintain ‘traditional’ skills at a time when most Aboriginal people were being displaced to reserves and missions and losing their connection to culture. This object was part of Gladys Henry’s (1921-2010) collection.
QM acquired this object by transfer from JCU Collection. Originally donated to JCU by the Australia Council. In 1979 Gladys Henry sold the collection of 588 artefacts to the Aboriginal Arts Board of Australia Council for $5,800 who then deposited the collection with the Material Culture Unit at James Cook University. A decade later in 1989 the Australia Council then gifted the collection to James Cook University. This gesture was celebrated with an official handover on 10 April 1990 attended by dignitaries from both organisations, Gladys Henry and local traditional owner representatives, with performances by Waddama Dancers. The collection is still one of the most important collections to be assembled after Walter Roth travelled through the Cardwell and Tully region in the early 1900s, and contains excellent examples of material culture production that continued well into the 1970s. Some of Henry’s collection is also held at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Her daughter Valerie Keenan is the Arts Manager at Girringun Aboriginal Art Centre in Cardwell.
See: ‘Gladys Henry’ authored by Trish Barnard
http://www.jcucollections.org/?page_id=797
Contact: Chantal Knowles, Head of Cultures and Histories, Queensland Museum, Brisbane, QLD 4001 AUSTRALIA
Phone: (07) 3842 9038