Port George IV Mission began in 1912 at Walcott Inlet in the West Kimberleys, but by 1913 was located at Port George IV. It was run by the Presbyterian Church. Children living on the mission were under the guardianship of the head of the departments responsible for Aboriginal welfare, but they lived with their families. In 1920 the Mission moved to Kunmunya and took its name from that place. In 1951, residents at Kunmunya and Munja Aboriginal Cattle Station agreed relocate together to Wotjulum Mission.
The letter describes the fashioning of spear heads with kangaroo bone by the Wororra tribe.
There is also a description of a "body-belt" of kangaroo fur string featuring a shell ornament at the back. It is worn by both men and women.
Shells are also used as ornaments and worn as a pendant around the neck and hanging down the back.
Noses are often pierced through the septum with a variety of objects including plain bone, a piece of stick, grass or the furry centre of a banksia flower.
Describing the Wororra tribe, Love says: "The physique of this tribe is magnificent, exceptional even among Australian tribes."
Wilfred Backhouse Alexander (4 February 1885 – 8 December 1965) was an English ornithologist and entomologist. After graduation he stayed in Cambridge for a short time working as assistant superintendent of the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology and assistant demonstrator in Zoology and Comparative Anatomy for Cambridge University. In 1911 he took a job with the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries as an assistant naturalist on an international exploration of the North Sea, but in August that year obtained the appointment of Assistant at the Western Australian Museum.
He moved to Australia in early 1912 to take up the position which he held for three years before being made Keeper of Biology at the museum. He made a number of expeditions to collect material for the museum including the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition to the Abrolhos Islands in 1913. He became Honorary Secretary of and co-editor of the journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia in 1914. In 1916 the museum was under severe financial pressure and Alexander was granted leave without pay to take up a position as science abstractor to the Advisory Council of Science and Industry in Melbourne, which he held until 1919 when he returned to the Western Australian Museum for a short time.
James Robert Beattie Love (1889-1947), clergyman and missionary, was born on 16 June 1889 at Lislaird, Killeter, Tyrone, Ireland, fifth child of Rev. George Clarke Love and his wife Margaret Georgina, née Beattie. When he was five months old the family migrated to Australia and, after a short stay in Victoria, settled at Strathalbyn, South Australia, where his father ministered to the Presbyterian congregation from 1892 until his retirement in 1923. Love received his schooling at Strathalbyn and the Pupil Teachers' School, Adelaide. He taught at Strathalbyn in 1906-07 and attended the University Training College in 1908-09 (B.A., Adelaide, 1915).
He was classified as head teacher and appointed to the school at Leighs Creek (Copley) in 1910. He began sending specimens of birds to Edwin Ashby who exhibited them at meetings of the Royal Society of South Australia; one of these birds was identified as a new genus and species, and named Ashbyia lovensis.
Late in 1912 Love accepted an honorary commission from the board of missions of the Presbyterian Church of Australia to investigate and report on the condition of the Aborigines and possible locations for mission work among them. His report was published as a pamphlet, The Aborigines, Their Present Condition as Seen in Northern South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Queensland (Melbourne, 1915). Two years later he took temporary charge of the Presbyterian Mission to the Aborigines at Port George IV (Kunmunya), Western Australia.
more...
