Appeared orginally on the Bristol Museum blog
My research focuses on material culture from Australia and the Pacific Islands – an understudied part of the collection at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. In 2022 I undertook a placement at the Museum and my aim was to focus on the documentation for these collections.
During a 1970s storage move the curatorial team created index cards with information for each object and small black and white photographs were added to some cards.
I systematically worked through approximately 2000 objects from across Oceania. It was a good way to ‘see’ the collection and I was able to add information to many existing records. The aim was to find objects that (although entered into the Registers) did not have a corresponding record on the database Ke Emu. In total I found 182 objects which would not come up in a database search. Most of these objects are from Papua New Guinea and New Zealand and include many important Maori cloaks.
I also made two exciting discoveries.
Firstly, this bag currently stored in the New Guinea collection had ‘no history’ (E1023). Looking at a photograph, I could see that this is a looped and knotted bag made in eastern Australia. The striking diagonal pattern indicates it is from the region from northeast New South Wales to southeast Queensland. Made by Aboriginal women in the mid-nineteenth century who soaked, dried and hardened fibres over ashes. These fibres were then knotted together diagonally. Some bags included coloured fibres of the plant which resulted in a graduating pattern. In a certain light, this bag has a pinky tone.
Secondly, this shell necklace on the database as Solomon Islands can now be identified as a traditional necklace from Tasmania (Ea11010).
I contacted Dr Ben Rowson, Senior Curator of Terrestrial Mollusca at the National Museum of Wales. He agreed that the shells are very likely Phasianotrochus irisodontes (known as rainbow kelp or maireener shells). They are found in the waters around southern Australia.
Dr Gaye Sculthorpe (Research Professor at Deakin University) showed photographs of the Bristol necklace to two authorities – Pakana curator Zoe Rimmer and artist Julie Gough. They were excited by the discovery confirmed the shells to be maireener shells.
Maireener shells were harvested and polished by Pakana women who made necklaces by threading them onto plaited vegetable fibre cord or kangaroo sinew. The Bristol necklace is strung onto a black, plaited cord – which could be horsehair, making this particular necklace unusual.
These necklaces are evidence of luna tunapri, women’s knowledge of natural history, the environment and the surrounding ocean. Made in large numbers in the nineteenth century, and sold and gifted to white visitors, they were relished for their fragility and beauty. They quickly became a commodity. They are a testament to the skill of women whose lives were being eradicated through colonial conquest and dispossession.
Elsewhere in the South West, at The Box in Plymouth there is a variety of shell necklaces collected by explorer Gertrude Benham in 1905. At the time of Benham’s visit, non-Aboriginal people were making shell necklaces for sale in a similar style. One maireener shell necklace presented to Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum in 1905 is said to have belonged to one of the famous Aboriginal women, Truganini. This necklace returned to Tasmania in November 1997.
Remnants of pierced shells have been found in burials dating back to the third century AD. Today women are once again stringing shells. This revitalisation of women’s cultural tradition ensures continuity and lineage. It is important to note that such shells are becoming harder to find as changing seas and climate are affecting their distribution.
The bag and the necklace are both rare objects in museum collections. They are two examples of female and they show the skill and technical ability needed to produce aesthetically beautiful belongings. They also reveal a complex and deep knowledge of resources and an inherited understanding of the rhythms of Country.
Although their provenance is still undiscovered, the good news is that they can now be made available for study.
Author
Polly Bence is a PhD researcher in archaeology at the Universtity of Bristol and the University of Exceter. Her PhD research is funded by the South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. Thanks to Lissant Bolton, Tony Eccles, Julie Gough, Lisa Graves, Zoe Rimmer, Ben Rowson and Gaye Sculthorpe.