noun
Meaning 1
A piece of wood, etched with angular lines and dots, traditionally used by Australian aborigines to communicate messages between different clans and language groups.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Australia
Examples
- 1889, A. W. Howitt, Australian Message-sticks and Messengers, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the Annual Meeting, Volume 58, page 842, The use of message-sticks is not universal in Australian tribes, and the degree of perfection reached in conveying information by them differs much.
- 1956, Charles Pearcy Mountford, American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnheim Land, Art, Myth and Symbolism, page 466, The scattered records of message sticks in the anthropological literature of the last seventy-five years indicate that, in one form or another, they have been, or still are being, used over most of aboriginal Australia.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided