Australian Aboriginal fibrecraft refers to the various ways
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...
create fibres traditionally. Materials used depend on where the people live in Australia.
Bark
Bark is used by many people across the continent. This technology is still used today to produce baskets, which are particularly popular in the tourism industry.
Kurrajong bark is a popular bark, as is the bark of
river wattles,
Sandpaper figs,
banyan
A banyan, also spelled "banian", is a fig that develops accessory trunks from adventitious prop roots, allowing the tree to spread outwards indefinitely. This distinguishes banyans from other trees with a strangler habit that begin life as a ...
s,
burney vines and
peanut trees.
In the north, the more tightly woven styles are made, whereas in the south, a looser stringed bag, popularly known as a
dilly bag
A dillybag or dilly bag is a traditional Australian Aboriginal bag generally woven from plant fibres. Dillybags are mainly designed and used by women to gather and transport food, and are most commonly found in the northern parts of Australia.
' ...
are made.
Hair
Hairstring is an important
textile
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
traditionally made by
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...
.
People, particularly women, would cut their
hair regularly using
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...
or
flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...
knives
A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced ...
. This hair is never wasted. It can be spun into long threads of yarn on a spindle rolled on the thigh and then
plaited to about the thickness of 8
ply
Ply, Pli, Plies or Plying may refer to:
Common uses
* Ply (layer), typically of paper or wood
** Plywood, made of layers of wood
** Tire ply, a layer of cords embedded in the rubber of a tire
Places
* Plymouth railway station, England, station ...
wool
Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...
.
Purposes for the string are manifold. These include making the head ring for resting the
coolamon,
headband
A headband is a clothing accessory worn in the hair or around the forehead, usually to hold hair away from the face or eyes. Headbands generally consist of a loop of elastic material or a horseshoe-shaped piece of flexible plastic or metal. T ...
s to keep the hair off the face,
spear
A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fasten ...
-making (securing the head to the shaft), and even balls for ball games.
A general-purpose
belt
Belt may refer to:
Apparel
* Belt (clothing), a leather or fabric band worn around the waist
* Championship belt, a type of trophy used primarily in combat sports
* Colored belts, such as a black belt or red belt, worn by martial arts practit ...
is made of the string, from which things could be hung, such as small game like
goanna
A goanna is any one of several species of lizards of the genus '' Varanus'' found in Australia and Southeast Asia.
Around 70 species of ''Varanus'' are known, 25 of which are found in Australia. This varied group of carnivorous reptiles ranges ...
s in order to free the hands on long walks and hunts.
Among some groups, including the
Pitjantjajara, a small modesty
apron
An apron is a garment that is worn over other clothing to cover the front of the body. The word comes from old French ''napron'' meaning a small piece of cloth, however over time "a napron" became "an apron", through a linguistics process cal ...
was made of the string for young girls to wear when they reached puberty. People in
Central Australia today may talk of a girl having her "string broken", which can mean sexual abuse, or having sex when she is not ready.
Among some
tribes
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
, adults wore a
loincloth
A loincloth is a one-piece garment, either wrapped around itself or kept in place by a belt. It covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks. Loincloths which are held up by belts or strings are specifically known as breechcloth or ...
-like pubic covering, which also hung from the waist belt. This was made either of the string itself, or of other material, including
paperbark
''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of ''Leptospermum''). They range in size f ...
. In the
Kimberley region of Western Australia
The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami deserts in the region of the Pilbara, an ...
, the men wore
pearl
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...
shells as a pubic covering, which they call ''
Riji
Riji are the pearl shells traditionally worn by Aboriginal men in the north-west part of Australia, around present day Broome. The word ''riji'' is from the Bardi language. Another word for it is ''jakuli''.
Rijis are worn as pubic coverin ...
'', and which are considered extremely sacred.
The string could be dyed various shades using dyes such as
ochre.
Some string was only worn for
ceremony, such as
skirt
A skirt is the lower part of a dress or a separate outer garment that covers a person from the waist downwards.
At its simplest, a skirt can be a draped garment made out of a single piece of fabric (such as pareos). However, most skirts ar ...
s worn by the women.
String games
300px, ">Cat's cradle
Many Aboriginal groups traditionally made many shapes out of the
string (cat's cradle). A researcher once watched and photographed a young Aboriginal woman from
Yirrkala
Yirrkala is a small community in East Arnhem Region, Northern Territory, Australia, southeast of the large mining town of Nhulunbuy, on the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land. Its population comprises predominantly Aboriginal Australians of the ...
make over 200 separate string figures. Each one involved complicated movements of her fingers and thumbs. She was able to remember the correct sequence of finger movements for nearly every figure she made, with only an occasional mistake which she quickly corrected. As she made each figure she gave it a name. Some examples included ''dangurang'' — a lobster, ''bapa'' — lightning, ''matjur'' — an ibis flying into a tree and ''gapu'' — the ripples on a pool.
The
Bangarra Dance Theatre
Bangarra Dance Theatre is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance company focused on contemporary dance. It was founded by African American dancer and choreographer Carole Y. Johnson, Gumbaynggirr man Rob Bryant, and South African-born C ...
's 2005 production of CLAN incorporated traditional desert string games into one of their performances, creating intricate patterns as they thread themselves through long, elastic strings.,
Graceful spin on a life's web - Arts - www.smh.com.au
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Grasses
Grasses are sometimes combined with hair to create a tougher fibre. Materials used differ depending on the area in Australia. In the arid areas, spinifex is common, whereas in the Top End
The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory is a geographical region encompassing the northernmost section of the Northern Territory, which aside from the Cape York Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Australian continent. It covers a ra ...
, palms such as pandanus are often used.
Pandanus and sand-palm are used in areas such as the Daly River region and Arnhem Land to weave carry baskets, dilly string bags, wall hangings, fibre sculpture, floor mats and fish nets. The women of Peppimenarti and Gunbalanya
Gunbalanya (also spelt Kunbarlanja, and historically referred to as Oenpelli) is an Aboriginal Australian town in west Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia, about east of Darwin. The main language spoken in the community is Kunwi ...
are famous for such weaving: each community has their own distinct styles and techniques.
See also
*Indigenous Australian art
Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving ...
*Australian Aboriginal culture
Australian Aboriginal culture includes a number of practices and ceremonies centered on a belief in the Dreamtime and other mythology. Reverence and respect for the land and oral traditions are emphasised. Over 300 languages and other groupings ...
References
External links
Australian Aboriginal Anthropology
Aboriginal Art Circular
Alice Nampitjimpa artwork
{{Textile arts
Australian Aboriginal clothing
Australian Aboriginal bushcraft
Textile arts of Australia
Animal hair products
History of Oceanian clothing