Kuku Yalanji warrior posing with a shield and spear. North Queensland rainforest region, late 1890s.

Albumen print photograph, 200 x 150 mm; laid down on its original album leaf of thin card; a very strong print with good tonal range; mount with scattered foxing.

This type of ‘rainforest shield’ is called balan bigin by the Kuku Yalanji people. It is made from the soft wood of a fig tree known as magurra or milbir, and is decorated with a unique totemic design. Two other shields can be seen in the background, resting on the roof of a group shelter constructed by bending and lashing cane into a dome-like structure

Alfred Atkinson, one of very few professional photographers working in FNQ at this time, documented the vanishing traditional culture of the rainforest peoples.