Courtesy Queensland Museum
Accession Number: QE1479
Museum: Queensland Museum
Date Acquired: 1916
Collector: Joseph Campbell (1856-1933)
Date Collected: 1916
Where from: Wrights Creek
Description: L 320 x W400 x H290mm
Bicornual basket – Dilly basket, lawyer cane, medium size and plain.
These bicornual baskets are unique to the Rainforest peoples that inhabited the lands between Port Douglas and Cardwell. They are made from twined lawyer cane (Calamus moti.) and varied in size according to their purpose, and were often used as an important trading item. Smaller baskets were used to carry seeds and fruit, and place into the running water to leach toxins from seeds. The larger ones were use to carry babies and possessions, while ochred baskets were sacred and used to carry human remains. The long handles attached to the bicornual baskets are placed across the forehead with the basket against the persons back, allowing the hands to remain free. These baskets are made by men and women from communities in North Queensland and collecting the prickly lawyer cane is an arduous task. In 1910 a cotton plantation called Gossypium Park, was established south of Cairns at Wrights Creek, (Kamma), which employed local Aboriginal labour. Five years later the plantation went into receivership and one of the cotton gins were sent to Yarrabah. In 1916, Joseph Campbell, former Director of Cotton Culture for Gossypium Park Estates Ltd., and supervisor of Aborigines on the plantation in 1914, sold a collection of artefacts including shields and baskets to the Queensland Museum for 30 pounds. Trish Barnard, Assistant Collection Manager, Oct. 2004.
See: ‘Joseph Campbell’ authored by Trish Barnard