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sketcher, was a Ngarrindjeri woman who appears fleetingly in the diary of Rev. George Taplin, a missionary at Raukkan (Point McLeay), South Australia. On 10 September 1867, Taplin recorded that Yertebrida was living at Milang, on the western side of Lake Alexandrina, and had given birth to a daughter. The whaler Baalpoolare Solomon, who also lived at Milang, is occasionally mentioned in Taplin’s journal too, but his relationship to Yertebrida is uncertain. Her name does not appear in Taplin’s 1876 list of Ngarrindjeri people, although other members of the Solomon family – Frenchman and Emily – are listed under the heading 'Milang clan’. When Yertebrida’s Native Encampment , Group of Animals and four other drawings were used as illustrations in Taplin’s Folklore and Customs … of the South Australian Aborigines (Adelaide, 1879) the artist was described thus: 'she was never in any school in her life, and never received any instruction in drawing’. The definitive tone of this description and the fact that Taplin carefully gives the date of the drawings – 1876 – may indicate that Yertebrida was no longer living in 1879 when he compiled his book.

When another of Yertebrida’s 1876 drawings, Hunting Party after Game , was reproduced in 1897 by Thomas Worsnop, Town Clerk of Adelaide, Taplin too was dead. However, his collection of drawings by Yertebrida (and probably others) was still held by his family. The current whereabouts of Yertebrida’s six undoubted originals is now unknown, though a more developed pencil and watercolour drawing of a group of male figures with shields (SAM), inscribed verso 'Original of pl.9 in Taplin South Aust. Folklore p.168’, has been attributed to her.

In 1859 George Taplin, a Congregationalist missionary, established a mission at Raukkan (Point McLeay) on the shores of Lake Alexandrina, South Australia. Twenty years later he used his extensive knowledge of the culture and language of the people of that part of South Australia-the Ngarrindjeri-as the basis of his Folklore, Manners, Customs and Languages of the South Australian Aborigines . In addition to photographs of Aboriginal people and their artefacts, Taplin chose to illustrate his book with drawings by Aborigines. Only one artist is named in the captions to the illustrations: Yertabrida Solomon. She remains the only identified woman artist of Aboriginal descent to make drawings in Australia in the nineteenth century.

Taplin was interested in drawings by Aborigines, treating them as evidence which purported to show the innate capabilities of the indigenous people. This was important evidence for missionaries attempting to establish mission-school educational regimes. For that reason, he also illustrated specimens of letter writing by Aboriginal pupils in his book. Regarding the drawings, Taplin wrote: The aborigines themselves show some natural talent for drawing. The pictures in this volume, copied from Aboriginal drawings, show this. Those contributed by the writer are by a woman called Yertabrida: she was never in any school in her life, and never received any instruction in drawing.

Six of Yertabrida’s drawings are illustrated in Taplin’s Folklore . They depict scenes of Ngarrindjeri life, with a particular emphasis on hunting and food gathering. She does not depict any aspects of ceremonial life, but instead concentrates on the daily life of the people. Native Encampment , for instance, shows a group of women and children around a campfire on which a billy is boiling. The billy is European, as is the small hut depicted in the drawing, but on the right hand side of the drawing a woman carries a baby in the pouch of her possum skin cloak-the traditional dress of Ngarrindjeri people. A bulrush-string bag or sedge basket of a type still made by the Ngarrindjeri women hangs from the lower branch of a tree.

All the drawings by Yertabrida that Taplin collected remained with his family after he died. Thomas Worsnop borrowed one for his book, The Prehistoric Arts, Manufactures, Works, Weapons, etc., of the Aborigines of Australia (Adelaide 1897), where he echoed Taplin’s praise of Yertabrida’s work, especially her Group of Animals (which Taplin had reproduced). Worsnop chose Yertabrida’s more intricate and detailed Hunting Party after Game as his sole representation of her drawing skills. Photolithographed by A. Vaughan of the Surveyor-General’s Office, Adelaide, it is undoubtedly a more accurate representation of the original than Taylor’s redrawn lithographs had been.

The layering of time and place in this hunting story is typical of many drawings by Aboriginal artists in the nineteenth century, comparable with examples by the Victorian Tommy McRae (c.1836-1901) and Mickey of Ulladulla, NSW (c.1824-1891). Because we are familiar with the conventions employed, we can read it as a narrative of three separate scenes taking place over time-hunting, killing, then carrying home two kangaroos-although Worsnop interpreted it in a conventional European way, as numerous incidents taking place simultaneously within a single picture field..

Writers:

Sayers, Andrew

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011