Collection of 193 String Figures from Yirrkala, Yolngu culture, Northern Territory, 1948

Brief description

This collection of 193 mounted string figures gathered at Yirrkala in the north-east Arnhem Land is the largest known collection from one community, made at the one time, in the world. The collection was made by Frederick McCarthy, Head of Ethnology at the Australian Museum, while participating in the American-Australian Expedition to Arnhem Land in 1948.

Full description

String figures are patterns or designs made on the hands with a loop of string. Commonly they are called ‘cat’s cradles’. Anthropologists in the late 19th and early 20th century ‘collected’ string figures from indigenous peoples in various parts of the world. Often the final designs were mounted on cardboard with a recording of the complex series of manipulations, by which they were made. This collection of 193 mounted string figures gathered at Yirrkala in the north-east Arnhem Land is the largest known collection from one community, made at the one time, in the world. The collection was made by Frederick McCarthy, Head of Ethnology at the Australian Museum, while participating in the American-Australian Expedition to Arnhem Land in 1948. McCarthy’s principal informer and collaborator was Ngarrawu Mununggurr, a young Djapu woman. He highly regarded Ngarrawu’s knowledge of designs and powers of recall and skill in making figures. The collection is well documented in field journals, descriptions, interpretations, technical instructions and 159 photographs that McCarthy took of Ngarrawu and two male informants demonstrating string figure designs, now kept in the Australian Museum’s Archives. The comprehensive nature of the collection makes it possible to analyse how string figures might function as a ‘meaning system,’ or pictorial language. McCarthy noted that while an everyday activity for women and children, string figures were used in ceremony by men. Currently the collection of string figures from Yirrkala is the subject of research by Robyn McKenzie, a PhD student at the Australian National University.