The Search for Kalboori Youngi
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600004426Keywords:
Joan Kerr, 'The National Women's Art Book', Kalboori Youngi, Nora Nathan, Linda Craigie, sculptureAbstract
The publication in 1995 of Joan Kerr's Heritage: The National Women's Art Book renewed public interest in the work of three Aboriginal women from the Boulia area of North Western Queensland: Kalboori Youngi, Nora Nathan and Linda Craigie. These women produced small-scale sculptural groups carved from two types of soft, local stone: mullenduddy, a sort of compressed clay; and kopi, a white talc-like material.
References
Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October 1936: 11.
Current Artbursts’, The Bulletin, 9 December 1936.
ibid.
Telephone interview with Mrs Molly Williams, Mt Isa, 1 September 1999.
Goddard, Roy H., ‘Aboriginal Sculpture’, ANZAAS Report, 24 January 1939: 161.
Williams, Molly interview.
However, Mrs Alice James (a Pitta Pitta woman who now lives in Brisbane), on seeing this work, immediately thought of the way Aboriginal women tuck up their dresses when foraging for mussels in creek beds.
Telephone interview with Mrs Violet Bennett, Sydney, 23 May 2000.
Preston donated Nora Nathan's Emu Egg Hunting and Young Girl and Linda Craigie's Two Ladies Wailing to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1948. These pieces were probably acquired in 1947 when Preston and her husband undertook a 15,000 kilometre journey to Darwin and back. Preston, because of her own interest in applying the techniques of Aboriginal art to her own art practice, was very aware of the regional variations of the art of Aboriginal people through her extensive travels in Australia.
Bruce and Elaine Sommer, ‘The Bitha Bitha Families: An Assessment’ in ethnografix, July 1999. For the sake of consistency, the group will be referred to as Pitta Pitta, the term in common usage.
Dent, Marian K., ‘A Man of the Land’, Mimag, December 1971: 11–16.
Telephone interview with Arthur Douglas, Mt Isa, 14 September 1999.
It is not clear when Goddard visited the area. His article in the ANZAAS Report (published January 1939) states that he met Kalboori Youngi ‘early last year’. However, this was not early 1938, as the figure of the man walking the horse (see Figure 4 in this article) also appeared in The Bulletin article of 9 December 1936 in the review for the display in the Rubery Bennett Gallery. As it can take a considerable time for an article to appear in a journal, perhaps he met the figure he identifies as Kalboori Youngi in early 1935. We can't be absolutely sure, as Goddard's own records do not survive and neither do those of the Anthropological Society of New South Wales, which ceased functioning many years ago.
Goddard, ‘Aboriginal Sculpture’: 161.
ibid.: 160.
Colliver, F. S. and Woolston, P.P., ‘Carvings by Kalboori Youngi and Others’, The Queensland Naturalist, 18(3 & 4) (June 1967).
Colliver and Woolston, ‘Carvings’: 57.
From notes provided by P.J. Gresser when he presented a work to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in 1985. The names suggest Linda Craigie, but it is possible that Grasser mistook the identity of the carver, whom he described as about ‘forty years of age’. Nora Nathan would have been about 35 at the time, Linda Craigie 30 years older. And, while acknowledging that everybody ages quickly in such a harsh climate, it would be difficult to make a mistake of this dimension.
Telephone interview with Cyril Nathan, Mt Isa, 1 September 2000. Although ‘Granny Linda’ carved occasionally, her preferred craft was knitting.
Goddard, ‘Aboriginal Sculpture’: 161.
Goddard, Roy H. ‘Aboriginal Rock Sculptures and Stenciling in the Carnarvon Ranges. Queensland’, Oceania, 11 (1940–41), pp. 368–73. Goddard, Roy H., ‘Aboriginal Rock Sculptures, Stenciling and Painting in the Carnarvon Ranges’, Queensland Geographical Journal, 47 (1941–42): 72–80. Roy H. Goddard, The Life and Times of James Milson, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1955.
Byron Nathan was born c. 1885 at Walaya (now part of Linda Downs), which his father, an Englishman, took up in the 1870s. When his father was speared to death on 2 September 1894, the property was split up amongst neighbouring stations and the largest section given to Carandotta, which was owned by a Milson partnership. Byron was then taken to Springvale by a Jimmy Craigie (possibly Jim Craigie, husband of Linda), where he worked as a horse-boy for Bob Milton who was a friend of his late lather. He stayed on the property for 20 years before going to Diamantina Lakes for a year then to Lake Nash. He married Nora Craigie in 1919 and in 1921 was made head stockman at Walgara, an outstation of Carandotta. See Dent, ‘A Man of the Land': 11–16.
Details on the Milson family provided by Scott Milson, Sydney in a telephone conversation, 3 January 2001. The Milson family maintained a close connection with Byron Nathan, who visited the family home at Cronulla when he was in Sydney.
Boulia Bob's tribal name is given as Wheelpoolee in Tania Cleary, Poignant Regalia: 19th Century Aboriginal Images and Breastplates (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 1993), 105.
Telephone conversation with Mrs Betty Parker, Mt Isa, 24 May 2000.
Goddard, ‘Aboriginal Sculpture’: 161.
Molly Williams interview.
Telephone conversation with Bruce Sommer, Townsville, 22 May 2000.
