| He established
a reputation as a world authority on Hepialid moths and this work often
connected with his anthropological studies. His archival collection housed
at the Museum includes journals, sound recordings, films, photographs, genealogies,
crayon drawings, maps and illustrations. Tindale spent the latter part of
his life in America and continued to devote '23 out of 24 hours of the day'
to studying the material he collected. |
| Tindale
challenged views about the early occupation of Australia, its prehistory
and the nature of Aboriginal relationships with the country. Tindale devoted
his life to showing that Australia was not 'terra nullius' (uninhabited
land) decades before that became a common viewpoint. |
 |
| Early Years. |
|
Kamizawa,
Japan
Photo: J H Tindale 1915
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
Young
Norman Tindale aged 14 years 9 months holding a butterfly net in Kamizawa,
Japan, 1915. He became fascinated with butterflies after visiting the Tokyo
Imperial War Museum and began collecting natural history specimens. The
classification of this material, ranking and ordering, formed the basis
of his taxonomic approach to collecting throughout his life. |
|
| Tindale with
a group of Aboriginal Ingura people from Bickerton Island in the Gulf
of Carpentaria, 1921. |
|
Bickerton
Island, Gulf of Carpentaria
Photo: Mr Dyer 1921
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
In
1921 Tindale received permission from the South Australian Museum Board
to undertake an extended field trip to Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Tindale's family background brought him into contact with the Church Missionary
Society of Australia and Tasmania which was extending its mission work from
a base at Roper River to Groote Eylandt. He was engaged to assist with the
establishment of the mission there. The Museum Board recognised the potential
for Tindale to collect natural history specimens and Aboriginal artefacts
in his spare time and provided him with a £50 grant to assist him in this
work. |
|
| Map annotated
by Tindale showing the routes taken by the Board for Anthropological
Research expeditions between 1924 and 1939. |
|
Map
of Australia
N
B Tindale After 1939
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
"The
Board undertook annual expeditions to Central Australia until the Second
World War, publishing its results in more than a hundred scientific papers.
Its members recorded detailed physical data from over 800 Aboriginal people
and documented aspects of their lives in some of the earliest ethnographic
sound recordings to be made in this country."
| Philip
Jones,1987, South Australian Anthropological History: The Board For
Anthropological Research And Its Early Expeditions, Records Of The
South Australian Museum, Vol. 20 May, Adelaide, South Australian Museum. |
|
|
| Iliaura women
collecting, winnowing and grinding grass seed, photographed by Norman
Tindale at MacDonald Downs in 1930 while on an expedition organised
by the Board for Anthropological Research. |
|
MacDonald
Downs
Photo: N B Tindale 1930
South
Australian Museum
|
|
"After
breakfast we walked away westward over the plain to a place where harvester
ant nests are plentiful and witnessed the whole procedure of gathering,
cleaning, winnowing grinding and cooking the seeds of the grass ('Panicum
decompositum') called 'otteta' by the natives. Three women wandered a mile
along the grassy area in a depression in the plain and gathered perhaps
twenty pounds of seed, husks and shells from the nests, up to a pound from
each. Bringing this back to the main party they placed the whole amount
in a round hole a foot in diameter and a foot deep. This hole was placed
about two feet further from the base of a convenient tree. The woman who
was to tread the grain stood in the hole and leaning both hands against
the trunk started to rotate her feet in the hole. After some ten minutes
of this treading the grain was scraped out by hand onto a large wooden dish
or koolaman and the woman started winnowing. The first shaking and rolling
of the dishes caused the grain and larger particles to separate from the
dust and lighter debris. Much of the further dust was eliminated by throwing
up in the air. Finally a further rolling and shaking caused all the large
particles, stones and pieces of stick to come together, the good grain being
thrown off on to another dish."
Transcription
from Tindale's journal.
MacDonald Downs
Journal
N B Tindale
1930
South Australian Museum
AA338/1/6 |
|
|
| On the
Board expedition to Mt Liebig in August 1932, Tindale met Paru who was 17
years old. Tindale recognised him because he met him the previous year in
1931, exactly a year earlier while on the Board's previous expedition to
Cockatoo Creek. |
| The genealogy
cards for Paru, a young Warlpiri man. |
|
Mt
Liebig
Board for Anthropological Research,
University of Adelaide
N B Tindale 1932
South Australian Museum
|
|
Tindale noted from
Paru's data-card, which he filled out in 1931, that he had acquired a
chest scar - an initiation mark - during the twelve months since they
had last met. He recorded information about his age, family history as
well as physical measurements, weight, colour of hair, etc. A photograph
of Paru was taken on both occasions and later attached to the cards.
|
|
| Pitjantjatjara
people moving camp in the Mann Ranges, winter 1933. |
|
Mann
Ranges, Central Australia
Photo: N B Tindale 1933
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
In
contrast to earlier Board expeditions which involved a team of researchers
in the field for two or three weeks, Norman Tindale and Cecil Hackett travelled
with a group of Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people through the Musgrave Ranges
for two months. They carried their equipment and supplies by camel and only
had occasional contact with outside support. |
|
Tindale
commented:
| "Cecil and
I became kind of hangers-on or parasites of the Aborigines, just wandering
along, taking photographs and asking questions, recording..."
|
Interview
with Norman Tindale
Philip Jones
Adelaide
1985
South Australian Museum |
|
|
| Tindale holding
a child from Monamona Mission, Queensland, 1938. |
|
Monamona
Mission, Queensland
Photo: Dorothy Tindale 1938
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
"The
physical anthropologist and geneticist, Joseph Birdsell collaborated with
Norman Tindale for a half-century. They proposed a survey of the so-called
'settled' regions of Australia, looking at what had happened physiologically
and sociologically to the Aboriginal people who had borne the brunt of European
contact. So they set off on a trip through Aboriginal settlements and missions
across Australia during 1938-39."
| Philip
Jones,1997, Norman B Tindale: His Life as an Archive, ASA Conference
Proceedings, Adelaide. |
|
|
| Tindale looking
out over the Devon Downs rock shelter on the Murray River. |
|
Devon
Downs Rock Shelter, Murray River
Photo: Harold L Sheard 1926
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
Tindale
looking out over the Devon Downs rock shelter on the Murray River, the site
of the first systematic archaeological excavation in Australia, which he
carried out with Herbert Hale in 1929. |
|
| Clarence Long
(Milerum) and H K Fry in a vehicle out on field work. |
|
Coorong,
South Australia
Photo: N B Tindale 1937
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
During
the 1930s Tindale developed a very close relationship with an Aboriginal
man from the Coorong, Clarence Long. The two men went on many site-recording
expeditions together with the anthropologist H K Fry during the 1930s. |
|
| Tindale
met an old Ngandi songmaker called Maroadunei from the interior of Arnhem
Land while on Groote Eylandt in 1921 and 1922. He introduced Tindale to
the idea of tribal boundaries, limits beyond which it was dangerous to move
without adequate recognition. Maroadunei's accounts of people and places
he had visited formed the basis of the map of southern Arnhem Land tribes
and their boundaries that Tindale made in 1925. |
| Map showing the
locations of Aboriginal tribes based on Tindale's fieldwork. A version
of this map was published in 1940. |
|
Aboriginal
Tribes
Norman Tindale 1939
South Australian Museum Tindale Collection
|
|
Tindale
wrote a paper with data to accompany the map but Edgar Waite, the Director
of the South Australian Museum at the time, refused to publish it arguing
the commonly held view that Aboriginal people roamed at will over the whole
country. From this time onwards Tindale focussed his attention on collecting
information about territoriality and mapping the boundaries of Aboriginal
groups across Australia. |
| In 1967
Tindale was awarded and honorary doctorate by the University of Colorado
in recognition of his academic work in America. A posting to the Australian
National University in 1973 enabled him to complete his major work on 'Aboriginal
Tribes of Australia' 1974. In 1980 Tindale was awarded his second honorary
doctorate by the Australian National University, but by this time he had
made his home in America. |
| |