• 1 palawa and pakana are two words revived through the palawa kani language program which mean the sam (...)

1In 2019, the identification at the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (mqB-JC) of a kelp water carrier (rikawa) from south-eastern lutruwita (Tasmania) collected in the early 1790s in the vicinity of Recherche Bay, most likely on lunawuni (now called Bruny Island) by French officers of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition, was a game changer. After being lost – yet never forgotten – for more than one hundred years it was finally found, mislabelled, amongst the African collections of the mqB-JC. Astoundingly, this modest artefact bearing catalogue number 71.2012.0.4874 (Fig. 1), taken from a campsite of the nununi people and made only of vegetable materials, had reached the mqB-JC in an excellent condition, once having formed part of the collections of voyage naturalist Jacques-Julien Houtou de La Billardière. Apart from a small chip on one side and a missing string fibre handle, it was intact. This state of preservation together with a well-documented history of its collection made it an unrivalled source of evidence to study long lost techniques once mastered by palawa/pakana1 women of lutruwita, as well as a priceless cultural treasure. It is the oldest kelp water carrier known in the world, the oldest container (or rikawa) of palawa to have survived and further, the oldest ethnographic artefact from lutruwita still extant. Importantly, it is the only known ethnographic object to directly attest to pre-colonial knowledge, ways of life and palawa relationships to the environment. The French who collected it observed use of such objects but not their manufacture or its maker.

• 2 See Ryan, 2012.

2Tasmania, now known in the reconstructed language palawa kani, as lutruwita, is located nearly two hundred kilometres away from the southeast coast of the mainland of Australia, from which it was once joined when sea levels were lower, but since approximately 12,000 years ago, separated by Bass Strait. It comprises a large eponymous island and many smaller ones that shelter some of the richest and most distinctive ecosystems on the planet. The modern names of many places are explicitly related to early European voyages during which these islands, bays, and channels were first charted. These include of course the voyage of Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, who visited the area (but did not encounter any Aboriginal people) in 1642, James Cook and two French expeditions respectively led by Antoine Bruni d’Entrecasteaux (1791-1794) and Nicolas Baudin (1800-1803). These Western names, however, should not obscure the fact that Aboriginal people first settled in lutruwita some 40,000 years ago, and that over the millennia they developed a distinctive material culture, of apparent simplicity and yet extreme ingenuity. That unique civilization though, was critically endangered and – in truth – almost completely erased from the surface of the earth through one of the most brutal colonial episodes of modern history.2

• 3 “Rex Greeno – Paperbark canoe,” 2015, available on the National Gallery of Australia’s YouTube chan (...)
• 4 See Gorringe, Gough, 2009.

3The “small but strong”3 surviving community of palawa people in lutruwita today, including artists and curators, has in recent decades initiated several major revitalization processes, to recover aspects of their unique culture. Research has thus been undertaken to retrieve and revitalize extremely altered and much lost original languages as well as lost techniques in object making and use. Among the most emblematic objects of lutruwita’s material culture, baskets and other containers, made by women, have received particular attention – and palawa men such as Rex Greeno have also revived making watercraft from various plant fibres. Several types of baskets and containers have been studied and reproduced, while also fuelling independent creative processes.4 Among these, a kind of vessel formerly made by Aboriginal women from large kelp leaves and used to collect, transport and drink fresh water has perhaps received the greatest attention, having no equivalent elsewhere in the world.

• 5 See for example, Langford, 1983; Sculthorpe, 2021; Rimmer, 2023.
• 6 For example, see Krmpotich, Peers, 2013; McCarthy, 2016; Lemire, Peers, Whitelaw, 2021.

6The engagement of palawa people with historic rikawa in collections continues the strong tradition of community activism in lutruwita for the return of Ancestral Remains and cultural objects, extending back to the 1970s. An important part of this work has included not only community activism and cultural endeavours by organisations such as the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre but also the roles played by palawa staff working as curators in museums in lutruwita and elsewhere, including by co-authors Rimmer and Sculthorpe.5 This critical engagement of palawa people and museums echoes similar developments in other parts of the world, such as in Canada, the United States of America and in Aotearoa/New Zealand.6 Our emphasis for this paper, furthermore, is primarily on materials and techniques rather than the broader engagement with museums by Indigenous people.

• 7 Gorringe, Gough, 2009, p. 26.
• 8 Ibid., p. 27.

9In 2009, an exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (in Hobart), titled tayenebe, was the culmination of a two-year research project (2006-2008), during which seven workshops were organised throughout lutruwita. During these gatherings, several generations of Aboriginal women had worked together to reclaim techniques and knowledge that had been largely suppressed for over a century, following the decline of the Aboriginal population in the aftermath of brutal colonisation.7 tayenebe means “exchange” and refers to mechanisms of transmission, essential to the production of plant made containers. The project enabled palawa women from across lutruwita to take part in the process of revitalization initiated by palawa Elders, including Ida West (1919-2003), Lennah Newson (1940-2005) and Muriel Maynard (1937-2008). At the beginning of the 1990s, they experimented and produced artworks reflecting their innovative spirit, drawing on cultural memory and generational connection to Country.8 The tayenebe project explicitly emphasized a return to historical sources.

• 9 See for example Aitken, 2022; Cutting, 2022; Morse, 2023; and “Kelp Water Carrier Returns to Tasman (...)

10The exhibition of works produced during the tayenebe project alongside earlier baskets made since the end of the twentieth century highlighted the ongoing connections between people and plants specific to the lutruwita environment. The formal and technical elements of baskets made by palawa women was emphasised, including, uniquely, containers made of bull kelp (Durvillea potatorum) formerly used to collect, transport and consume fresh water. In recent years, contemporary kelp water carriers (known as rikawa) have become emblematic of the rebirth of palawa material culture, being increasingly represented in Australian museums and art galleries, receiving dedicated media attention.9 The tayenebe project stressed the historical roots of these contemporary accomplishments, along with the important role of museum collections and early literary and pictorial sources in revitalization processes.

• 10 Douglas et al. (eds.), 2018, p. 198.
• 11 Mortimer, 1792, p. 20.

11For a long time, it was indeed an engraving from Baudin’s voyage (Fig. 2) that served as the main, if not the only, visual reference.10 This explains the formal proximity of kelp water carriers produced until the early 2000s, by palawa artists and Elders like Eva Richardson (1936-2023), Leonie Dickson (1950-2017), and Verna Nichols (born in 1947). Other early representations of these objects, as well as several written descriptions, did exist, but most of them remained in rare repositories, known only to a few specialists, in part because they remained untranslated into English and were inaccessible to most Aboriginal people. The first European who noted (but did not illustrate) these items was Lieutenant George Mortimer, who in July 1789 came across the remains of an Aboriginal fire and around it saw several baskets and “three small buckets for holding of water, made of a tough kind of seaweed, and skewered together at the sides.”11

• 12 Gough, 2018.
• 13 Douglas et al. (eds.), 2018, p. 191-192.
• 14 Gorringe, Gough, 2009, p. 28.

12A precious drawing by Jean H. Piron (Fig. 3), the artist on the d’Entrecasteaux expedition, kept at the mqB-JC faithfully represents the kelp container which has now been identified, as well as two woven plant fibre baskets still missing. Yet, it remained virtually unknown in lutruwita until Bronwen Douglas, Wonu Veys and others first published it in 2018, following on from research led since 2016 by palawa artist and curator Julie Gough.12 Gough emphasizes, also, that the drawing represents what are today considered invaluable cultural items “as disembodied ethnographic objects.”13 It has to be emphasised, however, that such written descriptions and visual documents produced at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, remain the work of outside observers, most of them men.14

• 15 Ibid., p. 14.

13The difficulty that artists, most of them women, face is increased by the fact that alternatives to these few images and objects are rare or non-existent. So rare, in fact, that each surviving object becomes exceptionally valuable. The information it contains, and the variants it represents are irreplaceable.15

• 17 Ryan, 2012.
• 18 Gorringe, Gough, 2009, p. 23.
• 19 Ibid., p. 15.

16A doctor, keen naturalist and colonial administrator, Milligan spent nearly 30 years in lutruwita (1831-1860). In 1847, as the officially appointed “superintendent of the Aborigines” he supervised the transfer of forty-seven Aboriginal people who had survived the “Black War” against them,17 back from exile on Flinders Island off the north east coast where they had been removed to in the early 1830s. They were taken to an ex-convict station at Oyster Cove, not far from Hobart, where the kelp container was most likely made.18 In 1850, Milligan was appointed secretary of the Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land lutruwita). In that capacity, he was centrally involved in obtaining, by means unknown, the Aboriginal objects for the 1851 Great Exhibition of London.19 At the end of the Exhibition, he donated five palawa objects displayed there to the British Museum, including the kelp water vessel.

• 20 Ibid., p. 59.

17In 2008, the British Museum published a series of photographs of this object on its website as part of its Collection Online project. This two-dimensional access to a three-dimensional object, including several different angles, helped reframe the artists’ understanding of the shaping of kelp containers. This gave rise to a second generation of contemporary water carriers, different from those modelled after the engraving from Baudin’s expedition. According to Verna Nichols and Leonie Dickson, this better understanding of how the different materials had been assembled allowed for the creation of carriers that were both easier to make and more functional. Using shorter sticks, pointed at one end only, they made kelp containers that were more stable and from which one could drink directly. Many questions remained, however. In particular, the artists wondered about a possible treatment of the raw kelp, or surface treatment of the container. Was it possible, for instance, that it had been greased with animal fat or smoked, which would explain its excellent state of preservation 170 years after being made?20 The term “model,” used in the Exhibition catalogue was also surprising. Does it mean that this is a functional water carrier? After all, it was probably only made to illustrate a type of object, materials and techniques used by palawa people. Did the dimensions, materials and other features differ from those of containers described by French navigators fifty or sixty years earlier?

• 21 Ibid., p. 23.

18These elements underline the importance of comparing textual descriptions and illustrations with three-dimensional objects. They also remind us that a single historical specimen – however valuable – leaves many questions unanswered, particularly as the conditions under which it was made and the identity of its maker remain critically unknown.21

• 22 See Leclerc-Caffarel, Servain-Riviale, 2021.

19In this light, the kelp water carrier collected during the d’Entrecasteaux expedition is an invaluable cultural treasure. In 2019, its identification was made through collaboration between mqB-JC and British Museum staff, as well as through the work of several specialists in France and abroad.22 Eventually, infrared spectroscopy – a non-invasive method of analysis, that provides a distinctive chemical signature for each material – confirmed that kelp samples collected during the d’Entrecasteaux expedition, and now housed at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris, and the material of which container 71.2012.0.4874 in the mqB-JC was made were chemically identical.

• 23 The people involved were Stéphanie Leclerc-Caffarel (curator of Pacific collections), Céline Daher (...)

22To these ends, a workshop held at the mqB-JC in April 2022, gathered all three containers for the first time (Fig. 6). Its organization was supported by financial and logistical support from the mqB-JC, the British Museum and the University of Tasmania. The owner of the container in Canberra gave permission for his container to be lent for this workshop and an export permit was obtained for its temporary removal from Australia. Representatives of the palawa community, contemporary makers of kelp containers, scientific staff and curators from the British Museum, mqB-JC, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and other museums worked together during five days.23 Through visual examination (both macro and microscopic), Fourier Transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses of historical as well as contemporary carriers – from the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in Le Havre (Fig. 7a, b and c) – researchers studied and compared the manufacture and details of each container. They also examined and experimented with samples of fresh kelp, collected from several sites in lutruwita especially for the workshop. The main aim was to better understand traditional techniques of making and to compare contemporary practices with historical ones, materialized in rare surviving artefacts. Another important goal was to reach an improved understanding of the materials themselves, including kelp, for conservation purposes. Ultimately, learning about possible conditions and places in which kelp water carriers would have been made and used remained crucial to the palawa community.

• 24 “Water-Vessel; Model,” The Brisith Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1851 (...)

23On the British Museum website the kelp water container bearing catalogue number Oc.1851,1122.2 is described as a “Water vessel made of bull kelp (Durvillaea potatorum) consisting of a single piece of dark brown coloured kelp. Sides are gathered together and wooden sticks passed through the folds, preserving its shape. Handle is of twisted fibre, knotted together near the centre.”24

• 25 See Sculthorpe et al., 2015, p. 225.
• 26 Nowadays the maker, manipulating the sand regularly throughout the drying process, determines the s (...)

26In current practice, makers fill containers with sand, to allow the kelp to dry and harden gently while maintaining the desired shape.25 The use of sand in the manufacture of historical kelp containers was a key hypothesis to verify. Microscopic observations, using digital microscope Hirox®, revealed the presence of grains of sand in the cracks and folds of the British Museum, mqB-JC and Canberra carriers, suggesting that sand was indeed used in the manufacture of early specimens. All three present a semi-flat bottom. Whether this shape was integral to the making process or not could not be determined with a sufficient degree of certainty during the workshop.26 The flexibility of rehydrated kelp, discussed in more detail below, did not allow us to be conclusive on this point.

• 27 Proteins can degrade with time but on a much longer period. It is therefore more likely that mollus (...)

27Possible treatments of the kelp, prior to the making of containers, or surface treatment(s) of the containers themselves were also important research questions. Early navigators described kelp water carriers in use near fires, during and after meals, and other social interactions. This, along with the incredible durability in museum contexts of the existing containers, suggested that they could have been smoked or strengthened by their exposure to smoke while they were used beside a fire. Unfortunately, chemical elements indicative of smoking are volatile and smoking residues are difficult to track. FTIR and XRF analyses did not highlight components typical of soot or other combustion products. Historical containers must have been exposed to smoke, as they were used to hold drinking water and fire was the central part of camp, for cooking and eating around. Whether they were deliberately ‘smoked’ as part of the making process was the research question under investigation. Unfortunately, it was not possible to confirm or dismiss that hypothesis during the workshop. Animal fat was also ruled out. Contemporary carriers made by Verna Nichols in 2020 and now housed in the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in Le Havre had obviously been polished, using a substance containing beeswax, which produces a distinctive signal of esters and fatty acids in FTIR spectra. However, the surface of historical containers did not reveal any added matter. Interestingly, FTIR of fresh kelp samples, collected in southeast lutruwita, did show protein bands, absent from the historical mqB-JC, British Museum and Canberra containers. These proteins matched visible secretions from molluscs. If those once existed in early specimens, it seems they had been washed out, worn off or faded, resulting in the absence of protein signal long after their making.27

• 28 Verna Nichols has confirmed that she used Dubbin® on her rikawa that are now with Le Havre. She can (...)

30Experimentation with samples of fresh kelp showed that different textures depended on the nature of the leaf, including its thickness and the part of the plant from which it had been cut, the age and extent of decay of the kelp when collected, the drying process, as well as the manipulation it had undergone during shaping. Contemporary examples from Le Havre have a different aspect altogether. They present a granulated surface, which microscopic observation correlated to small depressions spread across the surface of each artefact, in varying number. These probably resulted from the application of wax on finished containers, and the use of kelp that had been previously frozen.28 Transparency and colour drastically varied from one sample to the next, as well as from one contemporary carrier to the other, without obvious connection to provenance or even plants. Several samples had been cut from the same stem.

• 29 For example, see La Billardière, 1799, vol. I, p. 167.

33The rather smooth edges of the container found in Canberra suggested it could be an early specimen, and so did the aspect of the kelp, close to the British Museum specimen. Its rounded shape, small size and regularly pierced rim – all around –, however, made Zoe Rimmer think that it could be an early product of revitalization from the 1990s rather than a historical example. Rimmer mentioned that classes and workshops during which kelp container making is taught today often use that circular shape as a basic, less culturally sensitive, form. A cord would go through the holes, all around, drawing the circular edges together slightly to form a bowl shape. This technique is similar to that of coin pouch, a feature that becomes irrelevant once the kelp has dried and is not pliable anymore. Observation with the Hirox® microscope revealed residues of cotton or synthetic fiber in one of the holes. These findings require further analysis. Cotton would not exclude the 19^th century as the making period, synthetic fibre, on the other hand, would. The round purse shape, atypical in rikawa, does not exclude it from being a 19^th-century item either. Wallaby skin pouches holding the ashes of deceased loved ones were made and kept as sacred amulets. A woman, living on Flinders Island or at Oyster Cove, could also have imitated a Western artefact or made a kelp purse on commission. It is all the more intriguing that in officers’ journals, made during the d’Entrecasteaux voyage, the comparison used repeatedly to describe kelp water carriers is “une bourse à jeton” (coin purse).29 C14 dating is now being considered. This could indeed decipher whether the kelp of that artefact was cut prior or after 1945, when C14 data in the Pacific shifted due to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and subsequent nuclear testing in the region.

• 30 Personal communication, 1^st September 2023.
• 31 Ibid.

35The known historical examples provided more information. Especially, while it has been standard in revitalization practices to use sticks of tea tree (Leptospermum sp.), with reference to the British Museum specimen, mqB-JC’s earlier container comprises another type of wood. The distinctive bark left on the sticks suggests it might be Tasmanian currajong (Asterotrichion discolor), a plant endemic to lutruwita. According to Miguel de Salas (Senior Curator of Botany, Tasmanian Herbarium) another possibility would be forest daisy bush (Olearia lirata). Flat and twisted vegetable fibres look identical on both historical containers (Fig. 9). Zoe Rimmer identified the fibers used to secure the kelp as possibly being “river reed” (Schoenoplectus pungens), a plant from which many woven baskets are made. Miguel de Salas, however, suggested a kind of “swordsedges (probably Lepidosperma concavum) as the flat fibre in a figure-of-eight that secures the kelp in place [on the British Museum exemplar], and some more processed monocot (rush, reed, lily) for the twisted cord handle.”30 The flat fibre on the mqB-JC rikawa, is more challenging to identify. De Salas provided several hypotheses including: “a stripped bark, such as bootlace (Pimelea) or currajong, or instead a processed leaf such as the blue flax lily (Dianella).”31

• 32 Entrecasteaux, 1808, vol. I, p. 236; La Billardière, 1799, vol. II, p. 11.

36These elements suggest that kelp containers were made quickly, with available materials, and not submitted to specific standards of making, but guided by custom and knowledge patterns. Early voyagers describe them as common, emblematic of palawa material culture but not rare. The main material from which they are made, kelp, was abundant – although it now faces becoming endangered due to the effects of climate change. To this day, large kelp plants and leaves wash over beaches on shores around lutruwita, and in rather large quantity. That is where women, including makers of kelp items, collect it today. Information on the collection of kelp prior to British colonisation is lacking. Early descriptions attest that it could be cooked and eaten,32 but other uses might have escaped us. During the last few decades, women have regained some knowledge of working with kelp. This includes selection and preservation techniques that prevent it from rotting before the making of containers and other items manufactured from it. palawa artists such as Vicki West (born in 1960), have become well known for their use of kelp in contemporary and highly sculptural art forms.

• 33 Plomley, Piard-Bernier, 1993, p. 353.

37During the workshop, one key question pertained to the durability of kelp water carriers, both in museums today, as well as in the past. Once dry, the material is stable and solid. It can break, but experimentation demonstrated that it requires more than a light shock. Kelp is not fragile like glass. It is closer to some hard plastics (and can easily be mistaken for leather). When put back in contact with water, however, modern samples of kelp that had been left to dry for some time, rehydrated and regained their flexibility and leather-like properties. This suggests that kelp carriers could be used repeatedly to transport and consume water, left to dry, and then used again. This unique characteristic of kelp was noticed by the French in 1792-1793. Officer d’Auribeau saw fragments of “fucus” hanging in a shelter and thought it was skin: it was only when another officer placed it in water and it reverted to its original shape that he was convinced that it was in fact kelp.33

• 34 See list of historic baskets and measurements in Gorringe, Gough, 2009, p. 22-26.

39Experimentation with kelp samples during the workshop also showed that prolonged contact with fresh water was detrimental to the integrity of the kelp. Plunged into a box of fresh water, dry samples expanded considerably. Their surface changed, and after a few hours, they became slimy and began to break apart. Other samples, left in humid and confined conditions (in plastic wrapping) became moldy and began to degrade as well. This indicates that, in the absence of specific treatments – which this study failed to verify with sufficient certainty – kelp water carriers could have been used repeatedly, but only for short periods of time and far from indefinitely. These elements point toward rather disposable artefacts, used a couple of times before they were discarded. The materials from which they are made are not, or at least were not, rare. Although ingenious, the techniques they exemplify are simple. They include the collecting, cutting and piercing of the kelp; shaping it and finding a means to let it dry while preserving a desired shape; finding and collecting vegetable fiber for string lashes and choosing and splicing wooden skewers for holding in place. One can easily imagine that someone experienced could assemble one rather quickly. Fresh water is also abundant in lutruwita. Storing it for long periods of time was unnecessary. The size of all three containers indicates that they would fit into a woman’s fiber basket,34 but it may be tricky to insert and remove without damaging the short wooden sticks.

• 35 See for example the pōhā tītī or kelp bag housed at the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum: https://collectio (...)

40Another property of kelp, known to Aboriginal communities and algae experts today, is its nutritional value. Fresh water and food were not scarce in lutruwita. Yet they may have been lacking minerals and nutrients present in the kelp. Drinking water from kelp containers might have played an important role in the health of local populations. Similarly, Line Le Gall reported that fresh kelp possesses antiseptic properties, which could have been relevant to a number of situations, possibly including childbirth. This also explains why in Aotearoa, not that far from lutruwita and in a similar climate, Māori people used large leaves of kelp to transport and store mutton birds for meat consumption.35 This is the only other known ethnographic example, in Oceania or elsewhere, of kelp used in container making. Māori and palawa techniques, however, remain entirely different.

• 36 See Thurstan et al., 2018.
• 37 Jones, 2021.
• 38 Thurstan et al., 2018, p. 1826.

41Although kelp grows in widely distributed areas of coastal southeastern Australia, there is little documentation of its use by Aboriginal people outside of lutruwita.36 In coastal areas near to Adelaide and the Lower Murray region of South Australia, Aboriginal people have been reported as wearing kelp cloaks – as we see in images drawn by artist George French Angas37 – however, recent investigations have noted that this material was possibly sea grass rather than kelp.38 lutruwita was the only place in Australia where Aboriginal people used kelp for making containers.

• 39 Gorringe, Gough, 2009, p. 3.

42That uniqueness explains the status of kelp water containers today – that of cultural emblems. No other artefact, including baskets made using a specific “s-stitch twist technique,” reaches that level of distinctiveness.39 The scarcity of historical examples, combined with the wealth of technical information they hold makes them cultural treasures. In lutruwita, where colonization resulted in the almost complete annihilation of palawa people, the descendants of the few survivors, still face the dispossession of their land, language and much of their cultural knowledge. In this light, techniques, gestures, ways of life, relations to the environment, and even words, materialized in rikawa (kelp containers) are irreplaceable resources. Revitalization efforts led by palawa women, based on research in archives, museums, and in nature, bear testimony to the women’s extraordinary resilience, pride in regaining knowledge, and strength in rebuilding a fragmented cultural identity. Further investigations aim at narrowing down the age and provenance of the kelp container currently in private hands. The British Museum and mqB-JC rikawa rejoined in lutruwita in September and October 2022 for an exhibition and cultural project, in line with tayenebe (2009), titled taypani milaythina-tu: Return to Country (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 2022-2023). Both containers will stay in Hobart for two years, on a limited long-term loan, as per Australian law on the protection of cultural property on loan. One can only hope that the reconnection of the rikawa with local communities will help in the recovery of technical knowledge and other memories that have been dormant for more than two centuries. From the perspective of museums that hold these rare treasures in their collections, it presents an unprecedented opportunity: to combine local and international knowledge, to better document existing collections, promote cultural diversity, foster dialogue with source communities, and advocate the critical importance of collaborative museum-based research and work on the history of collections, material cultures and techniques.