A RARE AND EXCEPTIONAL BOWL, NORTH EAST QUEENSLAND

the unusually large and fine example carved in softwood of crescent form, with the deep bowl tapering to form points at each end which are pierced twice and attached is a native string handle, the outside of the bowl decorated with five bands of engraved traditional cross-hatched motifs, the undecorated, roughly hewn interior replete with adze markings

Robert Stewart of Southwick
Culgruff House, Kirkcudbrightshire Scotland
Christie's, Art Africain et Océanien, Paris, 11 June 2007, lot 224
Private collection

There are no visible repairs or restoration to this rare and exceptional bowl. There are chips missing from the back rim as visible in the catalogue and online illustrations.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

An important collection of Far North Queensland artefacts, formally in the collection of Robert Stewart of Southwick

LOTS 28 - 35

At Wigtown, which overlooks Solway Firth in the extreme south-west of Scotland, a large crowd gathered at the local Town Hall one night in late November 1878. The occasion was the opening address in the lecture series mounted annually by the Dalbeattie Mechanics' Institute of neighbouring Kirkcudbrightshire. Despite the decided winter chill the Wigtown hall was 'completely filled' the speaker being a local identity, recently returned from abroad. 'Mr Robert Stewart of Southwick' was 'warmly received' and his topic duly announced: "Our Colonial Empire, with a Practical Account of Life in Queensland".1

More than a regular Scottish repatriate, Robert was of the Stewart clan and thereby inextricably bound with Scottish history, legend and the land;2 he now envisaged a political career, having recently been endorsed as the conservative candidate for Kirkcudbrightshire.3 His Wigtown audience was duly regaled with 'incidents and illustrations' of his 'adventures'. Stewart spoke on colonial opportunities: in pastoral pursuits and prospecting for gold, on colonial attitudes, climate, wildlife and made observations on Australian Aborigines. To enhance the atmosphere the Town Hall stage was 'covered with opossum skins... pictures illustrative of the subject... and also specimens of boomerangs and clubs used by the natives of Queensland'.4 Robert Stewart's Wigtown speech was at once his opening political foray and the initial public display of his collection of Aboriginal artefacts gathered on the North Queensland pastoral frontier. 130 years hence a selection of items from his collection are offered for sale by Sotheby's.

On 13th June 1836 Robert Stewart was born at Southwick House, the second son of Mark Hawthorn Stewart and his wife Janet, nee Sprot. Southwick5 on the Kirkcudbrightshire family estate is 'picturesquely' placed some 20km. south of Dumfries, between the 'rugged foothills' of the Boreland Range and the shores of Solway Firth. Here Robert grew up with his two sisters: Mary and Isabella, and his older brother, Mark.

As befitted the status of eldest son of a landed gentry's family, Mark's education was impeccable: Winchester College, Christ Church, Oxford, and thence to the bar of London's Inner Temple. Back in Scotland in 1866 he married Marianne Susanna, heiress to Sir John McTaggart, Bart., whereafter her Ardwell Estate combined with Southwick, gave Mark an extensive landed interest. He served in parliament from 1874, was knighted in 1892 and his biographer summed him up as: 'landlord, M.P. and gentle squire' who gave a life of 'splendid usefulness'.6 But for the remaining Stewart children, life's expectations were of a lesser order. While benefiting from the Stewart name and superior social connections, concern to preserve the family estate intact meant that they would not inherit property. It was hoped that the daughters would marry well, while Robert, as the younger son, must make his own way in the world.

Robert's education is recorded as 'good', whereafter he went to London to follow 'commercial pursuits'. In 1855, while yet a teenager, he opted for a military career, securing a commission in the 79th Highlanders, which regiment was about to embark for the Crimea when hostilities ceased there in 1856. Soon after the Highlanders were posted to India where they saw rugged service during the Indian Mutiny, not least in 1858 during the relief of Lucknow. Stewart was in the thick of this action, and for a time he was adjutant to the regimental commander and also rendered service as linguist and interpreter.

With the cessation of hostilities in 1859 the British Military decided upon a substantial demobilisation of the Army in India, so that many young officers of Robert Stewart's ilk became concerned for their military prospects. Alert to possible alternative careers, they took note of accounts of opportunities currently offering in Australia, specifically in pastoral pursuits. Demand for wool in industrial Britain had given rise to the Australian squatting rush; the colonial economy had been transformed so that by the end of the 1850s Australia could fairly claim to be 'riding on the sheep's back'. Having decided to sell his army commission Robert sailed from India for Australia, now in quest of a squatting career.

By the time of Stewart's arrival the best pastoral land of the south eastern colonies had been taken up. But in 1860 the colony of Queensland, recently granted colonial autonomy, launched an alluring publicity campaign designed to attract pastoralists north to settle its vast unoccupied regions and thereby generate much needed revenue. When, on 1st January 1861, the new Pastoral District of Kennedy was declared open for settlement, what ensued was a dramatic land rush. As the first wave of pastoralists hastened north with their flocks and herds in a desperate quest to secure the best country, among their throng was Robert Stewart.8

In location the Kennedy District was wholly tropical. Constituting a roughly rectangular region, it was bounded north and south by the 18°S. and 21.5°S. parallels, to the west by the Great Dividing Range, and to the east the Coral Sea. Vegetation varied according to rainfall, with areas of dense rainforest around Cardwell and the Herbert River in the extreme north, there were areas of mangrove along the coast, but generally further west the dominant cover was savannah woodland with a variety of pasture grasses.

To service and administer the new district Bowen was founded in 1861, but within a decade that mantle passed to the more northerly port of Townsville. In the initial frenzied grab for land much attention had focused on the North Kennedy region, dominated by the great Burdekin River. This awareness was due to Ludwig Leichhardt who had reported favourably on this country during his Port Essington expedition in 1844. Robert Stewart soon secured a fine stretch of country with extensive frontage to Fletchers Creek, a western tributary of the Burdekin and some 130km. south-west of the future port of Townsville. His initial three continuous leases comprised some 232 sq.km.9

In honour of his childhood home Robert named his property Southwick. Robert Gray, a friend and fellow squatter who served with Stewart at the relief of Lucknow, passed by in 1865; he described the Southwick homestead site:

'His homestead, though awkwardly situated on basalt and black soil, commands a lovely view of one of the few perennial streams of the north, extending in this locality into a lake covered with water-lilies and teeming with wild-fowl of all descriptions – grebe, waterhens, ducks, geese and black swans. Beyond at the end of the valley, Mount Stewart stands up blue in the distance.' 10

That Gray should describe Southwick as 'awkwardly situated on basalt' is significant, for it stood on the very edge of a striking geographical feature. This was a volcanic lava flow of recent geological origin known as the Great Basalt Wall, which ran west to east between the parallel Lolworth and Fletchers Creeks. The area comprised rugged rocky terrain and a complex of spring-fed waterholes and streams which ensured a luxuriant vegetation and abundant native wild-life. As local settlers would find, this unique, picturesque region would provide a refuge and resistance base for retreating Aborigines in the wake of the occupying Europeans.11 Within this historical context, Robert Gray's use of the term 'awkward' may be taken as a euphemism for 'dangerous', for Southwick had violent beginnings, as will be noted hence.

Pastoralists who pioneered the Kennedy District can be divided, broadly speaking, into two distinct groups: those who came to settle long-term, for their future generations, and those who came on a temporary basis. Robert Stewart was of the latter group. Few young men of his social class thought of settling permanently in the colonies. Rather he envisaged a temporary exile (the shortest possible period, ideally) a stint of hard work and shrewd enterprise as would provide the means to resettle in style in his native Kirkcudbrightshire. The pastoral frontier provided such opportunities, but in hopes of thwarting pure land speculators the Queensland government had enacted legislation whereby, to qualify for land title, settlers must conform to specific settlement and stocking regulations. Accordingly, Stewart's broad strategy was to use Southwick as his base from whence he would secure additional properties; he would stock each station, build a basic homestead, and in time sell all of his holdings at a premium to frontier latecomers.

Opportunity presented in 1864. By now the Kennedy District was fully occupied so that the Queensland government threw open for settlement the vast Pastoral District of Burke, which extended from the Kennedy's western boundary to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Again a pastoral rush ensued, and with it again went Robert Stewart. North and west of the present Hughenden, Stewart applied for numerous runs, individually or in partnership groups. His applications had mixed success, but he is recalled in the local nomenclature: Stewarts Creek, Mount Stewart and the Strathstewart run, and in a scattering of place-names such as would appeal to an expatriate Scot. His principal holding was Telemon Station, west of Hughenden on the Flinders River, to which he later added Fairlight and finally Marathon.12

Paradoxically, for Robert Stewart, just as he secured his Burke District properties the supreme confidence that had driven the pastoral rush north had begun to collapse. By the early 1870s severe depression gripped both Kennedy and Burke and many settlers, sorely pressed, were walking off their runs. The reasons were numerous and complex: a dramatic decline in the price of wool, failure of sheep in the wet tropics and lack of markets for beef cattle, a colony-wide commercial crisis, government neglect of the outer districts, climatic extremes, tropical fevers, distance and isolation; but one of the most telling impediments to settlement was Aboriginal hostility.

North Queensland was a violent pastoral frontier.13 After an initial period of retreat from 1861, Aborigines in the Kennedy and later in Burke mounted a concerted resistance campaign against the occupying pastoralists. Acutely aware of superior European weaponry they avoided mass confrontations in lieu of guerrilla tactics. Individual travellers, small groups, or teamsters were attacked. Lonely shepherd's huts were a prime target and pastoral workers now fled the bush. Robert Gray later recalled of the northern frontier: 'in the 60's probably 10 to 15% of the white population lost their lives to the Blacks; others put the figure higher.'14 Another highly effective Aboriginal strategy was an economic campaign directed at settlers' property and stock. Station infrastructure was damaged or burnt and domestic animals killed or injured and scattered far from their runs. Amidst the broad spectrum of settlement woes Aboriginal resistance probably was the single most crippling blow to struggling pastoralists on the northern frontier.

After 1864 the principal service route west to the Burke District went from Townsville via Dalrymple, a township on the upper Burdekin, thence via Southwick and over the Dividing Range to Hughenden and the Gulf. But as Aboriginal resistance grew the route via Southwick and the Great Basalt Wall took on a fearful aspect. On her first ride west in 1868 to the family property, Hughenden Station, Lucy Gray camped at Southwick and recorded her impressions:

'In this part of the country the blacks have been troublesome and dangerous, the wall being a city of refuge to which they would always escape after they had committed depredations among the flocks and herds, besides killing white people, shepherds and whenever they had an opportunity. It was open warfare.... They were 20 to 1 with the white settlers, but their dread of fire arms left them at a disadvantage. Their own weapons are formidable when they have a chance of using them at short distances. Although they are supposed to be so numerous, we saw no trace of them on the way.'15

Local settlers were indeed hard pressed. All the 'basalt' stations felt the impact and Reedy Lake, immediately east of Southwick, was abandoned after repeated attacks on shepherds, sheep and the homestead itself.16 Teamsters also came under threat, their wagons plundered for sugar and flour or for metal and glass, the latter two materials being highly prized to improve the efficiency of spears and clubs. But ultimately, frontier rumour had it, the problem was answered with poisoned flour, and thereafter travellers and teamsters passed unmolested via the Great Basalt Wall. 17

Beyond the era of frontier conflict, for Robert Stewart the pastoral depression was at once a blessing and a curse. Financially he was probably better placed than most and could take profit from the crisis. In partnership with William Mark, the Dalrymple publican, he took over the abandoned Reedy Lake leases.18 Likewise he incorporated several runs from Hillgrove Station, north of Southwick, when the original settlers, the Allingham brothers, failed to pay their rents.19 He also secured a new unclaimed area, Southwick No. 4,20 so that Southwick became an extensive property. His stations now were converted from sheep to cattle, and as the 1870s progressed and northern mining fields took shape Stewart did a robust trade in beef cattle. A fellow squatter later observed of Stewart with awe: 'last year alone he cleared £12,000.'21

But still demand flagged for northern properties. Placing managers on al his stations Stewart went home in 1874 when he married Georgina Eeanor Maxwell, third daughter of Sir William Maxwell, Bart., of Cardoness on Wigtown Bay. Thereafter he moved regularly between Scotland and Queensland and finally, in 1881, he sold Telemon, Marathon and Southwick. This trip meant he missed the 1880 elections and his pobable political career, but, as he'd always planned, his stations fetched premium prices.22 Back in Queensland yet again in 1887 he sold his remaining station Fairlight,23 so that finally Robert Stewart could retire home to Scotland.

Back in Kirkcudbrightshire the Stewarts lived first at Glenlaggan, near Parton on the River Dee, from whence Robert could orchestrate his next key project: construction of their grand country house. In 1883 he had purchased Culgruff, an estate near the village of Crossmichael, and a mere 30km. north-west from the family seat at Southwick. Here he built Culgruff House, a three-storied 'noble mansion-house' complete with turreted tower, set amidst gardens and wooded grounds and with fine views over nearby Loch Key and Crossmichael on the River Dee. Quite the most striking room in the house was the morning room, with stained glass windows and vaulted ceiling above walls of double height and here on prominent display was hung Stewart's collection of Aboriginal artefacts.

Robert settled readily into the guise of the Scottish squire, assuming innumerable public offices; he supported charities, the school, the Church and various sporting groups and was a regular at the local cattle mart, dealing in stock and dispensing advice. It was in December 1902 during a visit to Southwick to attend the funeral of his sister, Mary, that he contracted pneumonia and, on December 27th, he died at Southwick House. He was 66. Buried at St Michael's Church, Crossmichael, some recalled his 'brusque and impulsive manner' but generally locals lamented him as a 'shrewd, intelligent, kindly-hearted laird'.24 'Shrewd' seems fair comment, for beyond Culgruff and associated tenant farms, his estate included an impressive portfolio of international bank and share investments and was valued at £85,000.25 A very shrewd Scottish second son indeed.

On the North Queensland pastoral frontier Robert Stewart had been numbered among an elite social group. In a despatch to the Duke of Newcastle the governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, identified this 'small sprinkling' of frontiersmen: 'retired officers of the army and navy... Oxford and Cambridge men... and other gentlemen of birth and education recently arrived from England.'26 This group formed a close social unit, drawn together by common background in the Church, the landed gentry or defence officer corps. While none saw themselves as long-term settlers they were prominent in the region's early history. They assumed social and community leadership roles, served as magistrates and justices of the peace, lobbied government for frontier protection and, in the early mining era, rode volunteer goldescort duty. Robert Stewart performed all these roles. Members of this frontier fraternity also displayed intellectual conceits and in accordance with the then prevailing passion for natural science many assumed the role of New World naturalist. Collecting and observing on myriad subjects they corresponded with British scientific societies including the Linnaean, the Royal Geographical, Zoological and Anthropological Society, they also penned journal articles and sent scientific specimens to colonial and international museums. Several of their number were admitted as fellows of pre-eminent Royal societies.27

It cannot be overstressed that none of these frontier 'so called' naturalists had the benefit of scientific training – all were of strictly amateur status. During the Victorian era, however, it was quite the norm for pure enthusiasts to collect and publish on natural science. The standard of work varied enormously, at worst it was truly awful but many outstanding contributions were made.28 In North Queensland the practice gained early impetus through the imprimatur of Sir George Ferguson Bowen. Ever alert to the opportunity to promote his fledgling colony, the governor sent accounts of frontier discoveries to the leading scientific societies via his official despatch box. It was doubtless flattering for the Queensland squatters to feature in esteemed scientific journals amongst famous New World explorers and naturalists who had made momentous scientific discoveries. But given their tropical setting, the frontier settlers were ideally placed to make their own significant finds, so that the pursuit of natural science moved apace across the pastoral frontier. Leadership here most often came from the superior social group, for on this extremely demanding frontier it was they who were best able to conduct such non-essential activities; the perception of this select group as a social and educated elite also lent credibility to their observations and discoveries.

There is no evidence to hand of Robert Stewart's particular commitment to natural science, but the activity was all around him on the northern pastoral frontier. With the opening of the Burke District in 1864, gradually it emerged that the level western downs was the site of an ancient inland sea, with fossils dating from the Cretaceous era strewn across the landscape. It happened that the first Australian ichthyosaur was discovered on Marathon Station, and forwarded thence to the Melbourne Museum.29 Later the local press reported of Marathon: 'the ground is covered with petrified fish of every description', while on Fairlight Station: 'a mud oyster of enormous size' had been unearthed.30 These developments predate Stewart's ownership of the stations, but the calling of natural science had now thoroughly infected his western colleagues, including Robert Gray of Hughenden Station. Gray contributed a second ichthyosaur; he later consigned Aboriginal artefacts and, in this era of phrenological inquiry, forwarded two skulls of his former Kanaka labourers to the Australian Museum.31

Back in the Kennedy District other close friends of Gray and Stewart: the Scott brothers of the Valley of Lagoons, former fellows of All Souls, Oxford, and in due course fellows of Royal scientific societies, became the most celebrated observer-collectors on the northern frontier. Situated in the far north of Kennedy close by the Herbert River rainforest, the Scotts embarked on a highly publicised search for remarkable rainforest specimens. They sought the first cassowary, the first tree-climbing kangaroo and an 'unknown ferocious animal', which was likened to the Tasmanian Thylacine.32 They also played host to visiting naturalists, experimented in plant acclimatisation, made extensive collections of Aboriginal artefacts and wrote on the local Aboriginal people. In truth the Scotts were never serious scientists; rather they were naturalist dilettantes, but in the right spot at the right time, and they basked in the high public esteem reserved for the intrepid servant of science on the extreme frontiers of Empire.

Robert Stewart's collection of Aboriginal artefacts may thus be seen within this particular historical context and, it so happens, he did dabble in natural history in his 1878 Wigtown speech. He gave attention to tropical fauna: to flying foxes: 'bats as large as rabbits... which came in thousands during the night and ate up every atom of ripe fruit'; to cuckoos who sang only at night and to the 'duck otter which had the beak of a bird and the body of an animal' (the platypus, presumably); he spoke of swans 'which wore black', on possums, parrots and snakes. It wasn't a profound contribution, more travellers' tale than natural history, but it could pass for science in the Victorian era and his Scottish audience seemed rapt. He also included in his speech a lengthy section on the nature and behaviour of Australian Aborigines.

At first glance Stewart's observations have the appearance to a modern reader of a mere collection of amusing anecdotes on the simplistic and bizarre behaviour of Aborigines, combined with expressions of regret at their inevitable demise. Again,w historical context is of the essence to grasp the substance of the exercise.

Pastoral settlers on the northern frontier were inordinately angry towards Aborigines. During the pioneering era Aborigines had dealt a near fatal blow through loss of European life and economic damage to squatting enterprises. Moreover, a critical component of the financial crisis that beset the settlers from the late 1860s was serious lack of confidence concerning northern investment. Bankers refused requests for loans, citing unacceptable risk due to Aboriginal conflict. This failure of economic confidence had a crippling impact on northern settlement.33

Almost immediately northern pastoralists felt pressure from a related issue: a rising movement of humanitarian concern over the treatment of native peoples throughout the British Empire. This involved many in British high places: in government, the Church and missionary societies, and many esteemed former anti-slavery campaigners assumed leadership of the movement. It had its origin in the brutal suppression of native people in the Jamaican Rebellion of 1865, and escalated from the late 1860s over concern at the kidnapping and maltreatment of Pacific Island labourers (Kanakas), taken for service in the sugar and pastoral industries in Queensland.34 After white labour had abandoned the frontier in the wake of Aboriginal attack, Kanakas had been employed throughout Kennedy and Burke, particularly as shepherds. Employer abuse of Kanakas certainly occurred here but the high mortality amongst these workers was primarily due to Aboriginal attack.35

The pain of this critical imperial gaze now drawn to the northern pastoral frontier, combined with the loss of financial confidence, focused the anger and frustration of the pastoralists firmly upon Aborigines. Settlers replied with a double-pronged public relations strategy. Collectively they agreed to adopt a policy of either silence or direct denial on the subject of frontier violence. They also embarked on a campaign of denigration of Aboriginal people. Thereby it was envisaged they would justify European reaction to Aborigines and the appropriation of their land. The solution lay in natural science or, more specifically, in the study of race.

As it was with natural history, Victorians were enthralled with the scientific study of race.36 This was then a new and highly erroneous discipline awash with a range of false theories, such as the Great Chain of Being, the Noble Savage, phrenology, or Social Darwinist theory. All were applied to measure and assess the nature, behaviour and status of different racial groups. The great racial scientists of the era pronounced and published widely on their subject, and as with the study of natural science, they attracted a host of amateur imitators. It became a popular amusement amongst ordinary Victorians to make observations on different racial groups, such as the English, French, Irish or Welsh, or if they ventured to the colonies on the local native people. Inevitably such studies were highly subjective and constituted scientific rubbish, but they could be taken seriously by Victorian readers because they purported to be 'scientific'.

The decision by squatters on the northern frontier to adopt racial science as a propaganda tool to denigrate Aborigines was not an original idea. It had been applied elsewhere against native peoples: during the Jamaican and Kanaka crises, in the controversy surrounding the American Civil War and, as every old Indian soldier knew, it had been used by Anglo-Indians in their post-Mutiny fury towards former native 'mutineers'. Applying this proven model, settlers wrote to family and friends and published newspaper articles, they incorporated their 'studies' in their travel journals or forwarded them to scientific societies. Contributions came from across the frontier but the leading propagandists were the elite settler social group. Included were the Gray family of Hughenden and those frontier scribes of natural science, the Scotts of the Valley of Lagoons;37 Robert Stewart also played his part with his Wigtown speech.

As the scientific basis for his 'field' observations Stewart chose Social Darwinist theory. After the release of Charles Darwin's thesis in 1859 on the theory of evolution and its allied concept of 'survival of the fittest', it was common for students of race to distort Darwin's original ideas and apply this now erroneous theory as a basis for their studies. The potential of this strategy had been recognised elsewhere as an easily applied and effective formula for the denigration of native peoples. Accordingly in his Wigtown speech Stewart presented a series of anecdotes designed to demonstrate the primitive nature of Aboriginal people. They were shown as simple, irresponsible, superstitious, devoid of conscience and mentally deficient; they went about naked and were cannibalistic: they 'roasted' and ate their own people. He continued: 'their very constitution defied all attempts at domestication... the wild savage life seemed to be born in their bones' and 'though educated and trained from childhood they would take the earliest opportunity to return to the woods'. For Stewart's Victorian audience, well abreast as most would be of Social Darwinist theory, this evidence would demonstrate irrefutably that Aborigines were a race of people in the most primitive state of evolution.

To extend the link with Darwinist theory Stewart was at pains to stress the abysmal status of Aborigines in their competition for racial survival: 'It is sad to think that before many years there will scarcely be one of the race left'. He proceeded:

'A question often mooted was whether the first settlers had any right to drive the black men back and occupy their country. He [Stewart] believed they had, for... had Britain abstained... [the Aborigines] would have shared... the same fate... perhaps worse... at the hands of Dutch masters. It was their fate to be abolished and they were fast vanishing'.

The unambiguous message for Stewart's audience was not only were Aborigines a dying race, but by the very laws of nature it was preordained that they succumb to a superior 'fitter' European race who were thereby the rightful inheritors of the land.

It was all a classic exercise in the rationalisation of European self-interest, but for Stewart's Wigtown audience his observations on Aborigines came with the authority of 'scientific' theory; doubtless they felt gratified too at his comforting reminder of the racial supremacy of Europeans. The M.C. proclaimed it and 'excellent lecture' and the speaker 'an extremely clever young fellow' and Stewart finally left the podium with its backdrop of Australian Aboriginal artefacts to sustained applause.

Comments on the Artefacts

The first modern, scholarly ethnographic-archaeological study of the Herbert-Burdekin area was conducted in the 1970s by Dr Helen Brayshaw of James Cook University, Townsville.38 Besides research in the actual region, this work involved exhaustive coverage of significant collections of relative material in both Australian and international collections. These comments are based on the Brayshaw research.

It seems probable that most if not all of the Stewart collection came from the area of the Herbert River rainforest and nearby north coast region. Originally that region was the home of a number of Aboriginal linguistic groups: the Giramay, Bandyin, Wargamay and Njawaygi in the centre and east, and to the west the Warungu and the Gugu-Badhun. It seems, however, that the Gugu-Badhun also followed a nomadic tradition of moving from their rainforest base, south along the Burdekin River, to a point slightly below the junction of Fletchers Creek. It is possible therefore that items of material culture of the Gugu-Badhun could have occurred in the vicinity of Southwick.39

The large rainforest shield in the Stewart collection is representative of its type, with bold distinctive design in ochre and with central boss. Occasional examples have been found along the coast as far south as Townsville, but typically these shields were of the rainforest proper, as were the baskets of woven string and bark. Examples of the small shield, known as club shields, have been found throughout the Burdekin area, including the Great Basalt Wall, though it is unclear if they were typical of the rainforest. Nets were used for fishing throughout the region in both freshwater and the sea, and certainly they were used on Fletchers Creek and in rock fissures in the Great Basalt Wall. Nets were also used to trap brush turkeys and marsupials.

Of the wooden clubs in the Stewart collection, the pineapple clubs with dentated sections at the distal end were widely distributed throughout the region, particularly along the coastal plain, though the sharp double-pointed clubs may be rare and no examples are included in the Brayshaw study. Finally, and of particular interest, are the large wooden water-carrying bowls. These also seem rare in the study area and only one comparable example is presented by Brayshaw, and this an inferiorexample from the Bowen hinterland.

Sotheby's wishes to thank Anne Allingham for providing this catalogue essay

Anne Allingham has B.A. (hons) and M.A. class I degrees in history from James Cook University; she was a volunteer assistant in field work and archaeological digs with Dr Helen Brayshaw during her Herbert-Burdekin research of the 1970s and is currently preparing her Ph D. thesis: European Settlers, Aborigines and the Land in the Burke District of North-west Queensland, at La Trobe University.

The Allingham family now owns Southwick, Fletcher Vale and Lochwall Stations along the Great Basalt Wall and to the immediate north, Hillgrove Station on the Basalt River.

1. "The Conservative Candidate for the Stewartry on our Colonial Empire', Wigtown Free Press, 21 Nov. 1878.
2. Burke's Landed Gentry, 1837, pp. 2151, 2152.
3. Dumfries & Galloway Courier, reported in Townsville Herald, 18 Sept. 1878.
4. Wigtown Free Press, 21 Nov. 1878.
5. Southwick: Gaelic for 'south bay'.
6. 'Sons of the South: Sir Mark John M'Taggart-Stewart, Bart., M.P.', The Gallovidian, vol. I, no. 4, 1899, pp.131-133.
7. Biographical details from obituaries: Wigtown Free Press, 1 Jan. 1903; North Queensland Herald, 21 Feb. 1903.
8. For details of the foundation era see Allingham, A Taming the Wilderness: the first decade of pastoral settlement in the Kennedy District, James Cook University of North Queensland, (JCUNQ), 1977, (hereafter Wilderness).
9. Queensland State Archives, (hereafter QSA), CLO/N17, nos. 637-639. Southwick totalled 145 sq. miles.
10. Gray, Robert, Reminiscences of India and North Queensland, London, 1912, pp. 86, 87, (hereafter Reminiscences).
11. Wilderness, pp. 2, 3.
12. QSA CLO/N33, nos. 65, 70, 88, 89, 90; CLO/N34, nos. 34, 49, 52, 54, 68, 72, 73, 74, 82, 185; CCL14/1 no. 409, etc.; Reminiscences, p. 87.
13. There is an extensive scholarly literature on this topic see in particular publications by Henry Reynolds and Noel Loos from the 1970s. See also Wilderness, pp. 139-179.
14. Reminiscences, p. 78; Wilderness, p. 154.
15. Journal of Lucy Gray, rough draft, John Oxley Library, Brisbane. (Hereafter JOL).
16. Wilderness, pp. 71, 157.
17. Family oral tradition passed on to the present writer.
18. QSA CLO/LAN/N75, p. 59; Cummins & Campbell Magazine, vol. v, no. 85, May 1934, p. 53.
19. QSA CLO/ N34, no. 17.
20. QSA CLO/LAN/N59, no. 9.
21. Gray family correspondence, JOL, 23 Aug.1882.
22. Marathon and Telemon together sold for £32,000 and Southwick for £30,000. QSA CLO/N34, nos. 52 & 54; Gray family correspondence, JOL, 6 June 1881, 23 Aug. 1882.
23. Fairlight sold for £30,000. QSA CLO/N34, nos. 37-39; Gray family correspondence, JOL, 14 May 1887.
24. Kirkcudbrightshire Advertiser, 2 Jan. 1903; Wigtown Free Press, 1 Jan. 1903.
25. Scottish Record Office, SC16/41/S6, pp. 164-169, C14681; SC16/47/3, C14681.
26. Lane Poole, S. Thirty Years of Colonial Government: A selection from the despatches and letters of Sir George Ferguson Bowen, vol. I, 1889, pp. 226, 227.
27. For a study of this phenomenon see Allingham, Anne, 'Omnium Gatherum: a naturalists' tradition in tropical Queensland', in Peripheral Visions: Essays on Australian Regional and Local History, JCUNQ, 1991, pp. 106-152, (hereafter Omnium Gatherum).
28. For a fine treatment of this topic see Barber, Lynn The Heyday of Natural History, 1820-1870, London, 1980, pp. 27-44, 123-138, etc.
29. Transactions, Royal Society of Victoria, 1866, vol. vii, pp. 49-51.
30. Port Denison Times, 21 March 1868.
31. Australian Museum Archives, Donations and Purchase file: C:10.79, no. 6, 29 April 1879.
32. The latter animal was never captured. Omniun Gatherum, pp. 136-139.
33. Wilderness, pp. 135, 136 190; Reminiscences, p. 135.
34. Parnaby, Owen, Britain and the Labor Trade in the Southwest Pacific, Durham, N.C. 1964, pp. 73-82.
35. Wilderness, pp. 130, 131, 155, etc.
36. For C19th scientific racial theory see Stepan, Nancy The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800-1960, London, 1982, and Reynolds, Henry, 'Racial Thought in Early Colonial Queensland', AJPH, vol. 20, no. 1, 1974.
37. Omnium Gatherum, pp. 139, 147-150
38. Brayshaw, Helen Well Beaten Paths: Aborigines of the Herbert Burdekin district, north Queensland. An Ethnographic and Archaeological Study, JCUNQ, 1990, hereafter Paths.
39. Paths, p. 33 ff.