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Stone axe
Title : Stone axe Stone axe
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Creator : Mountford, Charles P., photographer
Source : PRG 1218/34/671b
Date of creation : ca. 1937
Format : Photograph
Dimensions : 60 x 60 mm
Contributor : State Library of South Australia
Catalogue record
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Description :

Close up of a stone axe, fashioned by an Adnyamathanha man at the Nepabunna Mission Station, Northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia


Mountford described receiving the axe in his journal:

Fred Johnson gave me a stone axe and offered to mount it for me. He went out in the afternoon to get some sandalwood gum but returned with a small quantity, so was forced to use yacka gum.

A stick was split (about 12") long and the stone axe placed in the split.

Fur and hair string was bound around the head and the whole thing cemented together with the gum. This was heated in the flame and worked into place with the fingers.
(PRG 1218/8/1 p. 275)

Subjects
Period : 1927-1939
Place : Nepabunna
Region : Flinders Ranges and Far North - Outback
Further reading :

Brock, Peggy. Outback ghettos : Aborigines, institutionalisation and survival. Cambridge (England); Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Brock, Peggy. Yura and Udnyu : a history of the Adnyamathanha of the North Flinders Ranges. Adelaide: Wakefield Press in association with the Aboriginal Heritage Branch, Dept. of Environment and Planning, South Australia, 1985.

The Flinders Ranges : an Aboriginal view. 2nd ed. compiled by Christine Davis, Clifford Coulthard and Desmond Coulthard. Adelaide: Aboriginal Heritage Branch, Dept. of Environment and Planning, 1986.

Lamshed, Max. 'Monty': the biography of C.P. Mountford. Adelaide: Rigby, 1972. Ch. 10.

Survival in our own land : 'Aboriginal' experiences in 'South Australia' since 1836. told by Nungas and others ; edited and researched by Christobel Mattingley, co-edited by Ken Hampton. Adelaide: ALDAA in association with Hodder & Stoughton, 1988.

Tunbridge, Dorothy and Coulthard, Annie. Artefacts of the Flinders Ranges : an illustrated dictionary of artefacts used by the Adnyamathanha, Port Augusta, S. Aust. : Pipa Wangka, c1985.

Internet links :

Iga Warta - Accommodation and Cultural education on Adnyamathanha land

Nepabunna tourism


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