Dr Eric Mjoberg's 1913 scientific exploration of North Queensland's rainforest region

2006; Queensland Museum; Volume: 4; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

ISSN

2204-1478

Autores

Åsa Ferrier,

Tópico(s)

Australian Indigenous Culture and History

Resumo

This paper is an account of Dr Eric Mjoberg's travels in the northeast Queensland rainforest region, where he went, what observations he made, and what types of Aboriginal material culture items he collected and returned with to Sweden in 1914. Mjoberg, a Swedish entomologist commissioned by the Swedish government to document rainforest fauna and flora, spent seven months in the tropical rainforest region of far north Queensland in 1913, mainly exploring areas around the Atherton Tablelands. This area was at contact occupied by the Dyirbal language group and specifically the Jirrbal, Mamu and Ngajan dialectic groups. He also spent time exploring areas in and adjacent to the Mulgrave Valley, in Yidiny language territories. Although Mjoberg refers to the ethnographic collections from the rainforest region in various publications, the detailed documentation he made of these artefacts was never published in English. This previously unanalysed ethnographic collection is now primarily located in the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm, Sweden. The author's Swedish background and knowledge of the German language has enabled the analysis and translations of some of Mjoberg's field notes, short travel accounts, scientific papers, letters and collections. The aims of the analysis of the Mjoberg collection presented in this paper are to: document a little known Aboriginal rainforest material culture collection; and, where possible, pinpoint the geographic locations of the items to establish 'collecting-areas'. The paper briefly reflects upon the evidence for Aboriginal responses to European contact and research presently conducted in the region. Detailed descriptions and discussions of the artefacts in the collection are presented in a series of tables at the end of the paper and provide reference material against which other collections from the north Queensland rainforest region may be compared. Studies of museum collections of this kind are considered useful in constructing notions of regional variation in Aboriginal material culture and society across Australia.

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