Photo by Trish Barnard

Accession Number: QE348

Museum: Queensland Museum

Date Acquired:

Collector: Dr Ronald Hamlyn-Harris

Date Collected: c.1900

Where from: Yarrabah

Description: L560 x W330mm

Incomplete bicornual basket made from twined lawyer cane. Made by Menmuny (aka Menmurree and Merumanai), also known as King John Barlow. By 1906 Menmuny and his family had a small house at the mission, along Karpa Creek Road at the lower end of Mission Bay, where this basket was collected.

Incomplete bicornual basket made from twined lawyer cane. Made by Menmuny, also known as King John Barlow, who was one of the first senior Gunggandji man to be baptised on the shores of the Cairns inlet by Anglican Missionary, Reverend John Brown Gribble (1847-1893) who first arrived at Cape Grafton in 1891, and renamed him ’John Barlow’. The community is now called Yarrabah. It was Menmuny who encouraged a large group of Gunggandji people to visit the mission for the first time in 1892. Then Gribble appointed Menmuny as ‘King John Barlow’ of the mission, and together with a group of tribal elders, enforced mission rules as the leader of a twelve member ‘General Aboriginal Council’. By 1906 Menmuny and his family had a small house at the mission, along Karpa Creek Road at the lower end of Mission Bay, where this basket was collected. The museum in Yarrabah is named in honour of this significant traditional owner and Elder and his descendants still live in the community.