Kaurna Shield at the South Australian Museum: Ron learns about these weapons of war in the Adelaide City region of South Australia

Outside the South Australian Museum the lunchtime crowds go about their daily business while inside the main foyer others study an artefact which once belonged to a Kaurna warrior long before any of this was here.

Philip Jones, SA Museum: "At first glance it's merely a bark shield with distinctive ochre markings on a white background but in reality this is a unique cultural treasure. Museum curators haven't seen a shield like this in either private hands or auction houses in more than forty years. And even the split repaired more than a century ago evokes a particular episode in Kaurna history."

In all likelihood this Kaurna shield or Wokali as it's known, may have been broken following a battle on the Adelaide Plains back in the earliest days of European settlement.

Philip Jones, SA Museum: "It seems that although these shields appear very often in illustrations and drawings from the 1830s and 40s very few of them survived and this may be the best in tact example. So few survived for the simple reason that they were used in battle and conflict and it wasn't expected that many of them would come through unscathed through those events."

A watercolour by Museum Committee member William Cawthorne records an array of shields lying on a field of battle, south of Adelaide. They were often confiscated and later trodden under food by mounted police. The authorities were concerned about the number of pitched battles between rival aboriginal groups - a legacy of mass migration to Adelaide as more and more were dispossessed and as others came to the city to obtain European implements and commodities.

Philip Jones, SA Museum: "They came in and the Adelaide Plains people really considered that they essentially owned the commodities if you like and so when the Mount Barker people arrived for their share of the action and the Murray people."

At times this melting pot of different aboriginal clans on Kaurna land boiled over into violence and the shields or Wokali came into their own.

Philip Jones, SA Museum: "Usually what would happen is that as soon as somebody suffered a grievous wound … a pretty serious wound that could possibly be life threatening, essentially the battle was over. There could be as many as 200 people involved in such battles."

It certainly created a stir in European society. Artists were keen to capture in watercolour the Kaurna warriors of the time with their distinctive shields. The Wokali with its opposed arcs of red ochre painted on a white pipeclay background was a common sight in the 1830s and 40s but later disappeared from view following the ongoing dispossession of the Kaurna people.

This extremely rare shield had remained in the possession of one family for well over a century and was purchased by the SA Museum earlier this year to commemorate its 150th anniversary. It's on display in the museum's main foyer and is a reminder of a very different time on the plains of Adelaide. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au

South Australia Museum
North Terrace
Adelaide
Open daily 10am-5pm

Published 26th October 2008