Sayers Collection

• Other Authors: South Australian Museum (isManagedBy)
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Museum Metadata Exchange
• Subjects: Aboriginal artefacts; Aboriginal culture; Aboriginal peoples (Australians); burial poles; death & dying (humans); Aboriginal material culture; axe; bag; Bags; basket; boomerang; Ceremonial objects; club; container; cordage; D.M. Sayers; drawing; early 20th century; fire-making; food; knife; material; medical; message; musical instrument; narcotic; ornament; Painting; pigment; plume; pukumani poles; shield; sorcery; spear; spear-thrower; tools; toy; tunga baskets; watercraft; Aboriginal peoples; Artefacts; Basketwork; Ceremonies; Indigenous medicine; water transport; Anthropological specimens; Containers; Drawings; Edged Weapons; musical instruments; Ornaments; paintings; weapons; David Morney Sayers; Bathurst Island; Melville Island
• Online Access: https://researchdata.ands.org.au/sayers-collection/937028

More than 670 Aboriginal artefacts collected by D.M. Sayers from Melville and Bathurst Islands, N.T. Collection represents the first detailed material culture survey of Melville and Bathurst Islands, with the earliest and most complete collection of funerary (pukumani) poles and associated objects. Sayers was a mining agent and merchant, based in Adelaide. During his survey trips he collected ethnographic material, probably with the assistance of Joe Cooper, buffalo shooter on Melville Island. Unfortunately, collection is poorly documented, but is contemporaneous with that gathered and documented by W.B. Spencer (also with Cooper's assistance), now in Museum Victoria. Related Collections: Collection lists, correspondence in S.A. Museum Archives, State Records Office, S.A.