MALLERY. | MESSAGE STICKS. 369 
MESSAGE STICKS. 
The following extracts are made from Curr’s (a) Australian Race: 
I believe every tribe in Australia has its messenger, whose life, whilst he is in the 
performance of his duties, is held sacred in peace and war by the neighboring tribes. 
His duties are to convey the messages which the tribe desires to send to its neigh- 
bors, and to make arrangements about places of meeting on occasions of fights or 
corroborees. In many tribes it is the custom to supply the messenger when he sets 
out with a little carved stick, which he delivers with his message to the most influ- 
ential man of the tribe to which heissent. This carved stick he often carries whilst 
traveling stuck in the netted band which the blacks wear round the head. I have 
seen many of them, and been present when they were received and sent, and have 
some from Queensland in my possession at present. They are often flat, from 4 to 6 
inches long, an inch wide, and a third of an inch thick; others are round, of the 
same length, and as thick as one’s middle finger. When flat their edges are often 
notched, and their surface always more or less carved with indentations, transverse 
lines, and squares; in fact, with the same sort of figures with which the blacks 
ornament their weapons throughout the continent; when round, fantastic lines are 
cut around them or lengthwise. I have one before me at this moment which is a 
miniature boomerang, carved on both sides, notched at the edges, and colored with 
red ocher. Any black could fashion sticks of this sort in an hour or two. Some of 
my correspondents have spoken of them as a sort of writing, but when pressed on 
the subject have admitted that their surmise, all the circumstances weighed, was 
not tenable. The flat sticks especially have that sort of regularity and repetition 
of pattern which wall papers exhibit. That they do not serve the purpose of writing 
or hieroglyphies I have no hesitation in asserting; and I may remark that in all 
cases which have come under my notice the messenger delivered his message before 
he presented the carved stick. ‘That done the recipient would attempt to explain to 
those about him how the stick portrayed the message. Still this eminently childish 
proceeding leads one to consider whether the most savage mind does not contain the 
germ of writing. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his Discovery and Conquest of New 
Spain, relates that, when his country sent verbal messages by Mexican bearers to 
distant tribes, the messengers who had seen the Spaniards write always asked to be 
supplied with a letter, which, of course, neither they nor the people to whom they 
were sent could read. 
Fig. 477 reproduces the illustration of the message sticks published 
in the work above mentioned. 
Vol. 1, p. 306.—In the Majanna tribe messengers are sent with a notched or carved 
stick, and the bearer has to explain its meaning. If it be a challenge to fight, and 
the challenge is accepted, another stick is returned. 
Vol. 11, p. 183.—The bearer of an important communication from one party to another 
often carries a message stick with him, the notches and lines on which he refers to 
whilst delivering his message. This custom, which prevails from the north coast to 
the south, is a very curious one. No black fellow ever pretends to be able to under- 
stand a message from a notched stick, but always looks upon it as confirmatory of 
the message it accompanies. 
Vol. u, p. 427.—Message sticks are in use, the marks carved on them being a guar- 
anty of the messenger, the same as a ring with us in former times. 
Vol. 111, p. 263.—Message sticks are used by the Maranoa river tribe. An inform- 
ant has in his possession a reed necklace attached to a piece of flat wood about 5 
inches long; on the wood are carved straight and curved lines, and this piece of 
wood was sent by one portion of the tribe to another by a messenger, the two par- 
ties being about 60 miles apart. The interpretation of the carving was: “My wife 
has been stolen; we shall have to fight; bring your spears and boomerangs.” The 
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