Skip to main content
Advanced Search
Tail spike from stingray: Torres Strait Islands
Tail spike from stingray: Torres Strait Islands

Tail spike from stingray: Torres Strait Islands

Date1917 - 1933
Object number00018244
NameTail spike
MediumBone
Dimensions280 x 13 mm, 0.04 kg
ClassificationsAnimals and animal products
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Philip MacFarlane
DescriptionA tail spike from a stingray collected from Torres Strait Island, Australia. This tail spike was collected by the Reverend and Mrs MacFarlane whilst serving as missionaries on Erub (Darnley) Island in Tores Strait from 1917 - 1933.HistoryThe Reverend William MacFarlane was an Anglican missionary who, with his wife Gwen MacFarlane, worked in the Torres Strait Islands from 1917 until 1933, mainly at the Erub (Darnley) Island Mission. During his service he kept detailed diaries and notes on the work of the Mission as well as on the culture of the Islanders, their legends and history, which included many references to individual Islanders and families. The MacFarlanes wrote and broadcast about their experiences and Torres Strait Island culture in a series of magazine articles and on ABC radio, until Reverend MacFarlane's death in 1963. While at the Mission, Reverend MacFarland contributed notes and photographs to Dr A. C. Haddon, which were incorporated in the ethnography volume of the Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Cambridge, 1935. Gwen MacFarlane's memoirs, ‘Smoke, sand and sail: a home with "the happy people"', written some years after leaving Torres Strait, are held as an unpublished manuscript in the AIAS Library.SignificanceOn the many islands in the Torres Strait wood for carving is rare. People on the islands look for alternative materials from the sea. Drift wood was often used and transformed to produce dramatic carvings like masks for their ceremonies.