A Bi-Cornual Basket or Jawun, North East Queensland

For an extensive discussion of the history, construction methods and use of Queensland rainforest baskets see J. Ewington, "Working The River: Baskets Of The Rainforest", and D. Henry with T. Johnson, "Jawun: An interview with Desley Henry" in Queensland Art Gallery's catalogue of the exhibition, Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest, Brisbane, 2003, pp. 158-169. This catalogue features several illustrations of historical and contemporary bi-cornual baskets; for examples of 19th century baskets see W. Caruana, Aboriginal Art, London and New York, 2003, p.184, pl. 161, for a basket in the collection of the Museum of Victoria; S. M. Davies, Collected: 150 Years of Aboriginal Art and Artifacts at the Macleay Museum, Sydney, 2002, p.77, pl. 88; H. Morphy, Aboriginal Art, London, 1998, p. 347, pl. 231, for a basket in the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford.

This basket was collected on Muralambeen, a farming and grazing property in the Hinchinbrook Shire of North Queensland. Muralambeen was established by Christopher Allingham in 1876 in the floodplain of the Herbert River. The property has been in the family ever since. The property employed many Indigenous workers over the years; the women wove carrying baskets but they also traded with neighbouring groups to obtain jawun or bi-cornual baskets. This basket originated in the Herbert River Region and was probably made by members of the Nyawaygi or Wargamaygan groups.

Morphy says "The two-cornered baskets made from lawyer cane are striking and elegant objects. The mouth of the basket is circular; the body opens out with curved lines ending in sharply pointed corners. The form seems to be the architectural product of a mathematical formula combining strength with flexibility, a highly complex form based on simple principles [...] these rare objects epitomize the rich basketry traditions that exist throughout Australia wherever the raw materials are available." (ibid.).

The baskets are made by the people in the rainforest area from around Cooktown in the north to the Cardwell area in the south on the eastern coast of Cape York. Historically, they were made by men and used by women, although in more recent times women have made them too. Jawun have a variety of purposes: they are used as carrying baskets with the handle looped around the forehead; as fish traps in rivers where the horns of the baskets allow them to be wedged between sticks or rocks; and as sieves to leach out toxic substances from a variety of bush food.