Ethnographic Collection
The ethnographic collection comprises about 6000 objects from Australia and the Pacific region. Nearly half the collection was acquired between 1865 and 1891. Some of this material was collected on early voyages, such as HMS Curacoa (1865), HMS Blanche (1872) and W.J. Macleay's Chevert expedition (1875).
Australia
Collectors include Walter Wilson Froggatt (1886-1887), George Masters (1860s-1870s) and Edward Spalding (1870s).Aboriginal material culture (about 1,100 objects - bark paintings, engraved pearl-shells, boomerangs, shields, spears, clubs, clothing) much of which was collected in the 1870s and 1880s from Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.
The Museum's collection of Aboriginal paintings includes 10 bark paintings collected about 1878, which are the earliest known bark paintings extant, and 112 paintings on bark, masonite, linoleum, from Arnhem Land collected by the anthropologist R.M. Berndt, 1946-1947.
Torres Strait
About 100 objects, collected either by Arthur Alexander Onslow on the HMS Herald (1859-1861) or by Macleay on the Chevert expedition (1875). The Museum's collection of material culture from the Torres Strait is the oldest held in an Australian museum.
Papua New Guinea
Masks, ornaments, head-dresses, fishing nets, bowls, pots mainly collected between 1872 and the late 1880s.
Contains material culture from the Gulf of Papua, Madang province, New Britain, New Ireland, Admiralty Islands and Trobriand Islands. Includes material collected by Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay, a Russian scientist and ethnographer who lived on the north-east coast of Papua New Guinea in the 1870s. Other collectors include William John Macleay (1875) and the explorer Theodore Francis Bevan (1887). Later Collections include Robert Mitton, who collected in New Britain in the 1970s.
Fiji
Kava bowls, clubs, bark cloths, wooden bowls and implements mainly collected by John Archibald Boyd, a European planter, between1865 and 1882.
Solomon Islands
About 300 objects, some collected on Julius L. Brenchley’s expedition (HMS Curacoa,1865) and on the HMS Blanche (1872). Mostly collected before 1879.
Vanuatu
From the Islands of Mallicolo, Pentecost, Espiritu Santo objects collected during the 1870s
Caroline Islands
Mainly neck ornaments and waist belts, slings, ear ornaments, mostly collected by John Brazier on HMS Blanche, 1872
The Museum also holds a small amount of material from Kiribati, Tonga, New Zealand, Samoa and Indonesia. There are also a number of photographs of anthropological interest in the Macleay Museum's historic photograph collection.
Related Exhibitions
- Collected : 150 Years of Aboriginal Art and Artifacts (Please be aware that these pages may contain images of the deceased)
- "Spoils of War"? - Walter Wilson Froggatt in the Kimberleys in 1887 - a violent episode
- A Noble Cause - The Life and Work of Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay - Macleay's celebrated Russian colleague
- Yirrkala - Bark paintings from Arnhem Land
- Armchair Collector - An exhibition on William John Macleay
Previous Exhibitions
- Adorned - Objects of Adornment from Australia and the Pacific
- Yalo i Viti - Spirit of Fiji - Fijian material culture
- Island Encounters - Artefacts from the Torres Strait and Pacific Islands 1860-1891 - features many of the more significant pieces from the collections
- Boomerangs - An exhibition on Australian Boomerangs
