Rikawa: Tasmanian Aboriginal Kelp Water Containers

Abstract

Abstract: Water containers made of kelp from lutruwita (Tasmania) are one of the rarest object types found in ethnographic museum collections. Only two, well-documented, historic examples still exist. The British Museum holds one given to it in 1851, after the Great Exhibition of London. An older example, which formed part of the collections of a French naturalist engaged on the d’Entrecasteaux expedition in southern lutruwita in the early 1790s, was located at the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in 2019, after it had been mislabelled and was thought to be lost for several decades. The technical and cultural information that these two containers evidence is invaluable to Aboriginal people (palawa) in lutruwita today. This paper discusses and reflects on the on-going collaborative research, which involves the Tasmanian Aboriginal community as well as museum scientific staff and curators, in an effort to better understand these rare objects and the once lost techniques they exemplify.