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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Marc & Elena Pinto Collection
• Sale Date:
  20 May 2015 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  4
• Lot Description:
  An Early Parrying Shield and Leangle Club
  South East Australia (mid nineteenth century)
  carved hardwood and traces of natural earth pigments
  64.5 cm; 62 cm high (2)
• Provenance:
  King Billy, the Loddon tribe, Bendigo, Victoria; 'Pop' Jones, Bendigo, Victoria (early 1900s); By descent; Eric McConnille, Victoria (circa 1960); Private Collection, New South Wales; The Marc and Elena Pinto Collection, Perth
• Notes:
  This shield and club is sold with a signed letter by Eric McConnille stating that the artefacts were originally collected by 'Pop' Jones who was a train driver for Vicrail in Bendigo. The shield and club were reputedly collected by Jones from 'King Billy' who was the last of the Loddon tribe in Bendigo in the early 1900s. This parrying shield and club possess a fascinating provenance having been given to a Victorian train driver, 'Pop' Jones of Bendigo, in the first years of the twentieth century by a tribal elder who was given the sobriquet of 'King Billy, the last of the Loddon tribe'. The shield bears the hallmarks of shields from the southeastern region of the continent: the sharp, triangular profile; the cut handle; and an engraved design of parallel chevron lines divided into five sections by lateral undecorated bands. The leangle also bears engraved decoration at the grip and cross-hatching around a natural bulbous protrusion in the timber. The Aboriginal identity of King Billy may be a mystery however he is likely to have belonged to the Dja Dja Wurrung group. It is likely that he is the same King Billy who was referred to in an article that originally appeared in the Bendigo Advertiser and reprinted in the Country News section of The Argus on Friday, 31 May 1872. The article reflects the settler population's predilection to believe it was witnessing the end of a civilization claiming that King Billy 'is the last of the Loddon tribe. Once that was one of the strongest tribes in Victoria ... .' King Billy was judged however, to be a 'sober man ... who dresses himself very tidily, and conducts himself peacefully, being a regular favourite among the farmers in Eddington and Laanecoorie.' Furthermore, King Billy's social standing was such that he wanted to institute a tollgate on the new bridge over the Loddon 'in order that he may obtain a revenue from the traffic, which he claims as the right which his progenitors enjoyed in the ages of antiquity.' King Billy may also have had his portrait sketched by the colonial artist George Rowe (see Cahir, F., Black Gold: Aboriginal people on the goldfields of Victoria, 1850-1870, Aboriginal History monograph, 25, Canberra: ANU EPress, 2012, p.31), 'Pop' Jones was a Victorian train driver living in Bendigo early in the twentieth century. He died in the early 1960s upon which the shield passed into the hands of Eric McConnille. In a letter that accompanies the artefacts and that had been received by the current collector on 15 October 2012, McConnille describes the history of the pieces. Although McConnille states that as Jones drove trains all over the state of Victoria it is not known where he met this King Billy. Nonetheless, as both lived in the Bendigo area, the likelihood is that it was the Dja Dja Wurrung King Billy who gave the objects to 'Pop' Jones. Wally Caruana
• Estimate:
  A$10,000 - 15,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Tribal

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.