Ambassadors
Objects as ancestors, objects as ambassadors
Ambassadors is the Museum’s ongoing display of First Nations culture and heritage. Throughout the Museum, you will meet 'ambassadors' from different regions of Aboriginal Australia.
Expressions of material culture and heritage – what we might refer to as ‘objects’ in museums – are among the many tools that people across the world use to connect with their ancestral heritage and knowledge. On each floor of the Museum, displays of objects made by Aboriginal peoples from different Nations become ‘ambassadors’ of Aboriginal Australia. Each Ambassador has been curated within and informed by Aboriginal knowledge frameworks. We welcome descendants’ continuing work with the collections made by their ancestors.
Contact our Curator, Indigenous Heritage, Marika Duczynski at marika.duczynski@sydney.edu.au
Curator
Matt Poll
Designer
Youssofzay+Hart
Exhibition Manager
Luke Parker
Open seven days a week
Mon - Fri: 10am - 5pm
Sat - Sun: 12 - 4pm
Closed on Public Holidays
Ongoing exhibition
All levels
Chau Chak Wing Museum
Free
Buraga! Baya, buruga !
(Rise! Voices and hands!)
Yanma baru, yanma bulbuwul
(Move fast and move strong)
Naminmamila nugbady, dunga ngyinigai migal
(Show your love and shed your tears)
Yilabara, badjamibuni, midyungmibuni
(Today, do not harm, but mend)
– Joel Davison, Gadigal ambassador, 2016
Bera (fishook)
Sydney
Donated by Fr Eugene Stockton 1985
Macleay Collections, ET2014.1872
Dolord means 'cave’ for those who have responsibility to the Wandjina: the Worrorra, Ngarinyin and Wunambal peoples.
"When the word came that we could get our native title to our land, we travelled back to the desert. We went to Kurtal three times. We have to prove if it is our own country or not. It is really piyirnkura (Aboriginal) land. We know exactly how we fit together, we know our own country and we know the right people for the other jila (waterholes). We don’t cut across, we have to go lightly into other people’s country. But in kartiya law we don’t know where we stand. In kartiya law it is all mixed up."
– Ngarralja Tommy May Wangkajunga and Walmajarri 2016
Ngurti, coolamon
Nyikina Mangala language association
Macleay Collections, ETD.1117
"I paint, craft and make artefacts to ground myself. It is known that these techniques, used over hundreds of years, become embedded in our DNA. So, through the process of making a spear or shaping the figure of a spirit, I connect with my ancestors and they help bring my practices to life."
– Bernard Singleton Djabuguy, Umpila, Yirrkandji, 2019
Jill Nga (headband)
Wik Mungan peoples
Macleay Collections, ETA1032
"When you see this design, you know it’s about the storm story, how storms started, and fighting, and that it’s a story in itself … You have got mountains and rivers as the two main boundaries, you follow rivers, and between rivers and the other rivers you always met half way, you’ll notice the boundaries are in the middle of the river, it’s not by accident, we go halves. It’s Girramay/Jirrbal, halfway between the Davison River. You won’t see that on any maps."
– Ernie Grant, Jirrbal, 2019
Nolla Nolla, (meaning clubs in Karun-burra language)
Herbert River region, North Queensland, c. 1885
Macleay Collections, ETH.1013.1-2, ETH.1010
The Shield People are represented by shields made in Sydney, the Mid North coast, the Northern Rivers and the Central West to North West NSW. Nation groups in these regions were at the forefront of resistance to colonisation.
"Ballumb Ambul Ngunawhal Ngambri yindamarra. Ngadu bang marang Ngadhu Ngu-nha winhanga nha nulabang nguwandang. Ngadhu biyap yuganha. Birrang a ngawaal. Ngadhu, yand yaman gid yal. Yindyamarra. Mandaang. Ngarind-ja.
In the language of Wiradjuri, my people: I pay respect to the ancient Ngunawhal and Ngambri. I say this: good day. I am giving my first speech and I am deeply moved. I have journeyed to another place – a powerful place. I am one person. I wish in this House to honour, to be respectful, to be gentle and to be polite. I am thankful, happy. I could weep."
– Linda Burney MP, Wiradjuri, maiden speech, House of Representatives, 31 August 2016
Bagah (shield), Bundjalung peoples
Coraki, northern New South Wales
Collected Hugh James, c. 1925, donated by Rev. Preston, 1991
Macleay Collections, ET91.4.4
"Songlines are a library of information. They are many things: a road map, a bible, our history. The examples and stories in songlines guide the way we live and give us our unique cultural identities. But our culture and history are an oral one, if it is not talked about, it is forgotten."
– Cornel Ozies, 2016
Riji, (pearl shell) Bardi peoples
Kimberley, Western Australia
Transferred from the Department of Anthropology, c.1970
Macleay Collections, ETA2009
"Each dreaming has different paint. Different where we come from like totem. Great and grandfathers, fathers. It’s sort like we all Tiwi people from the two islands [but] different totem. We all the same style like what we do back home. It was passing down from the old people. Passing down the knowledge they had. Passing down to us, and us, we are passing down our knowledge to next generation, ongoing."
– Jacinta Tipungwuti, Tiwi 2019
Kurrijuwa, (stone axe heads)
Tiwi Islands, Northern Territory
Collected by Keith Hart, 1928–29
Transferred from the Department of Anthropology, c.1962
Macleay Collections, ETH.1792
"Let us sit around the one campfire. As the Yolngu said at Uluru – we have an obligation to keep the fire burning."
– Professor Tom Calma AO, co-chair of Reconciliation Australia
Yalamarti, bark painting
Bird
Port Essington, Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory
Collected by Edward Spalding or James Cox before 1878
Macleay Family, 1790–1892
Macleay Collections, ETP.993,
Header image: 'Ambassadors: Murrakupuni; Mangara, Wo?', Chau Chak Wing Musuem, 2024. Photo by Fiona Wolf.
Phone: +61 2 93512812
Email: ccwm.info@sydney.edu.au
Chau Chak Wing Museum
University Place
Camperdown NSW 2050
