Artificial Horizon by Thomas Martin

Author:Thomas, Martin [Thomas, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522851519
Google: pK2Dn5_HSXYC
Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing
Published: 2004-01-15T04:04:39+00:00

BONY VIOLENCES

It remains for us to deal with the nature of stones or, in other words, the prime folly in our behaviour.

PLINY, Natural History.

What is the connection between myths of petrified Aborigines and the widely held belief that they were representatives of a ‘stone-age’ culture? A connection is tellingly personified in the figure of Mel Ward, who first published the Three Sisters legend. In 1957, eight years after that publication, a photograph of Ward appeared on the cover of Reader’s Digest (colour plate 16). He is depicted in his strange, echoic monument—the Museum of Natural History and Native Art, located in the grounds of the Hydro Majestic, a grand hotel perched on the clifftop at the Blue Mountains town of Medlow Bath. He appears as a white-haired, reflective custodian of his collection, solemnly holding and staring at an elaborately carved drum. Arrayed around him is a host of wooden masks and carvings, pickings from Pacific islands, cluttered among ornamental poles and carvings. Other photos from the same period suggest some fanciful cornucopia to ‘the Primitive’. Spears radiate from walls as artificial rafters, their labels of identification dangling like pennants. Woven mats and fish traps, carved motifs and musical instruments are crammed along walls and shelves. A stuffed kangaroo surveys it all. Positioned along a chest of drawers (would you dare to open them?) half a dozen skulls provide the focal point at the termination of a corridor, literally a dead-end.33

Ward’s letters, held by the Australian Museum, elucidate his collecting process. They can make for startling reading. In 1947 he received correspondence from one M. D. McPaul in Theodore, Queensland, announcing an expedition ‘to collect some aboriginal mummies. . . from an area about 50 or 60 miles from here and would be pleased to know if you are interested in these to the extent of making it a paying proposition for me to get some’. He also offered ‘some fragmentary specimens of the meal grinding stones in this area’ and, on a different note, asked whether Ward had received a scorpion, fearful it was damaged in the post.34

Ward’s archive contains many such letters. He had contacts throughout the country, many of them white officials—police officers or mission superintendents—who, with a little financial lubrication, assisted with the collection of objects. Many of these were zoological or mineral specimens, yet others involved the plunder of graves. A correspondent in the Northern Territory made an excited offer of nine baby skeletons wrapped in bark. Ethically, there appeared to be no distinction between the gathering of Aboriginal remains and the purchase of ‘natural’ specimens. A Queensland correspondent could proffer Aboriginal carvings and sketches of beetles.

Ward’s biography reveals a combined passion for showmanship and collecting. He lived from 1903 to 1966, son of the vaudeville performers Hugh and Grace Ward. He left school at age sixteen, made his stage debut as a dancer in The Bing Boys on Broadway, then trod the boards for another eight years before retiring youthfully on a private income. He devoted time and fortune to his childhood fascination for crabs.

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