Abstract
ILLUSTRATIONS accompanying the printed report now available of a communication presented at the Canberra meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science which dealt with aboriginal sculpture render possible an independent judgment on material the discovery of which is hailed by the author, E. P. Goddard, as “one of the most noteworthy finds in many years” (Report. 24th Meeting Aust. and N. Zealand Assoc. Adv. Sci. 1939, Sect. F., Anthropology). The sculpture is the work of a woman of about thirty-two years of age, Kalboori Youngi by name, and a member of the Pitta-Pitta tribe. She is obviously a sculptor of natural genius, producing carved human figures remarkable both for their modelling and their detail, as well as their feeling for the disposal of mass and line. She works in two kinds of clays, of which one is used in the composition of the ‘widow's caps' used in mourning rites. Her tool at first was a fine flake of quartzite, but she now employs a pocket-knife which has been given to her.
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Australian Aboriginal Artist. Nature 145, 699 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145699a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145699a0