The Library received cultural clearance from the Umbakumba Community Council Inc, Groote Eylandt, to display this image. Reproduction rights are owned by State Library of South Australia.
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Two Aboriginal boys playing with a wooden toy canoe, Groote Eylandt.

These children are playing with a scaled-down version of a bark canoe which they may have built themselves or had adult help to make. By learning how to build and handle a canoe, and imitating other adult life skills, the children were prepared for the roles they would undertake when they grew up. Other similar play activities would have included building and operating fish traps, constructing and floating small rafts, using 'model' spears and hunting sticks, and learning to identify animal tracks by copying them in the sand. Co-operating and learning to complete tasks together would benefit everyone. Activities were representative of gender roles so boys would practice hunting and girls digging for food and child care. Through these activities children developed their knowledge of the waters, land and animals, and of their culture and traditions.

This image has been reproduced with the kind permission of the Umbakumba Community Council.

American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, (1948)

American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, (1948). Records of the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land, Melbourne : Melbourne University Press, 1956-1964

Haagen, Claudia, Bush toys : Aboriginal children at play, Canberra : Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1994

Lamshed, Max, 'Monty' : the biography of C.P. Mountford, [Adelaide] : Rigby, 1972

May, Sally K. Collecting cultures : myth, politics, and collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, Lanham, Md. : AltaMira Press, 2010

Poignant, Axel., Bush walkabout, London : Angus and Robertson, 1972

Thomson, Donald F., Children of the wilderness, South Yarra, Vic. Currey O'Neil, distributed by Gordon & Gotch, 1983

Web Links:

Angurugu Community Government Council - Groote Eylandt Community