This series comprises drawings by Aboriginal people that were commissioned by members of the Board for Anthropological Research party whilst on expedition. The process is best described by Charles Pearcy Mountford in 'Aboriginal Crayon Drawings', Records of the South Australian Museum, Vol. 6, pp 1-28: 'Sheets of brown wrapping paper, approximately 50 cm. by 30 cm., were distributed, together with [red, yellow, black and white] crayons..it was especially desired that nothing external should influence the choice either of the subject, the colours chosen or the method of drawing'. The Aboriginal person 'was asked only to make marks (walka) on his paper'. (p5)

Mountford adds that intitially 'simple drawings of everyday things of aboriginal life were made, such as kangaroos, emus, trees, camps and waterholes' but after a week, confidence was gained and 'drawings relating to the travels and exploits of the aborginal's mythical ancestors began to be produced by the older man. From that time onward, no difficulty was experienced in obtaining designs, in fact, it was unfortunate that, as only a limited amount of time was available for interpretation of the detail, and the recording of the data, the distribution of sheets had to be curtailed.' (p6)

Each artist was identified by their data card identifier: see AA 346/4/20

Drawing collected and annotated by: Norman Tindale and Dr Joseph Birdsell

For further information see:

• 'Harvard and Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, Australia, 1938-1939. Journal and notes by Norman B. Tindale. I.' (AA 338/1/15)


• Sutton, Peter, 1998, 'Aboriginal Maps and Plans', The History of Cartography, volume Two, Book Three, Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Artic, Australian, and Pacific Societies, David Woodward and G Malcolm Lewis (editors), The University of Chicago Press, pp 387-416.