"In 1990 I was carrying out Ph.D. field research with the Garawa, a
language group located in the southern inland region of Australia's Gulf of
Carpentaria. One afternoon I was with a party comprising one older man and
two women. it was a relaxing afternoon with the two women fishing while
the man and I discussed the land-use and settlement activities of past
Garawa. during a break after lunch he borrowed my knife, eventually
producing a small carved object called a Dayowurruwurru, or message stick,
an item we had been discussing on and off over several weeks. This object
is illustrated in Figure 1. It is 12 centimetres long, 1.5 centimetres in
diameter and cylindrical in cross-section. It has several incised lines.
"My informant then explained the meaning and use of this item. The
message stick was given to a person who was to carry it to its recipients.
In addition to delivering the message stick itself, with its text implicit
in its inscribed "symbols', the deliverer was to tell the recipient of the
message. The message stick was, therefore, largely a mnemonic device
although it also seems to have acted in part as a 'contract' between the
sender, the carrier and the recipient.
:the example that accompanied the message stick described in Figure 1
is as follows. Two men wish to meet another two men at a specific location
at some time in the future. Two incised lines at one end of the message
stick represent the sender and his brother while two incised lines at the
other end of the stick represent the recipients. the single pit in the
centre represents the location. The deliverer was to tell the recipients
of the location and time of the meeting.
"This all made perfect sense. I then asked 'what are these marks?',
referring to the circumscribing and diagonal symbols. I expected these
marks to have a particular set of meanings or to serve as some identifier.
My informant looked at me and said, quite straightforwardly, 'Some lines'."
~Michael Pickering, "The Message Stick: An Anecdote", Rock Art Research
14(1997):1, p. 59
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm