A Group of Janjula
This afternoon Gillen and I went down to the camps by the river side. There are a big lot of natives here. Some of them are splendid looking fellows standing fully 6 feet high. They are a wild looking lot with regular frizzy hair and as much at home in their canoes on the water as amongst the scrub on land.
During the past day or two a big canoe has come up the river from the coast with about twenty natives in it. It is quite unlike the bark canoes and is simply a great log hollowed out and shaped into a boat. It is quite 30 feet long . This particular boat was made by the Malays who come all down the coast every year in their Prahus in quest of tortoise shell and beche de mer which they barter for with the blacks.
During the past day or two a big canoe has come up the river from the coast with about twenty natives in it. It is quite unlike the bark canoes and is simply a great log hollowed out and shaped into a boat. It is quite 30 feet long . This particular boat was made by the Malays who come all down the coast every year in their Prahus in quest of tortoise shell and beche de mer which they barter for with the blacks.
Keywords: aborigines, anthropology, Baldwin Spencer, Walter, cultural preservation, culture, custom, Macarthur River, Northern Territory, 1901
Photograph: A group of Yanyuwa and Marra men who share a camp by the Macarthur River. Dec. 1901. Photograph Baldwin Spencer. Reproduced courtesy Museum Victoria.
Author: Rowse, Tim and Graham, Trevor
© Museum Victoria
Author: Rowse, Tim and Graham, Trevor
© Museum Victoria