Sarah Midgley Aborigine Budgerree Doll
Name/Title
Sarah Midgley Aborigine Budgerree DollEntry/Object ID
2026.593.01Tags
Sarah Midgley, Doll, Australia, SouvenirDescription
Aborigine Budgerree doll, the doll depicts traditional Indigenous Australian attire. The doll is modeled and named after a friend from the creator's childhood. The doll is dressed in a feather skirt adorned with white shells, she also wears a necklace made of colourful shells and carries two shells in one of her hands,. The doll has black eyes and black hair and is made of fabric.Use
Collectable item.Context
Sarah Ellen ‘Nellie’ Midgley arrived in Australia from England in 1873, aged ten years. Her family settled in the timber milling township, Mill Point, on the shores of Lake Cootharaba near Noosa. Nellie and her sister Lizzie’s playmates were Aboriginal girls, Widgeon and Kummera. Later in life, Midgley wrote her childhood memories of emigration and life at Mill Point as a children’s story, Yabba Yabba of Widgeon and Cummera. To accompany the story, she created dolls in the likeness of her childhood friends as well as other Aboriginal figures. These were commercially produced and Midgley’s dolls are today highly collectible and recognized as Australia’s first souvenir or national costume dolls. They were also an impetus for the production of other Aboriginal dolls in subsequent decades, including the Brownie Downing and Metta/Netti dolls. The Midgley dolls are significant in Australian doll history. Even more important is their basis on ‘real’ people and their depiction of Kabi Kabi people who lived in the Noosa region in the 1870s. Midgley’s story provides valuable insights into the emigration voyage, life at Mill Point, and interaction between European incomers and Aboriginal people in the Noosa district in the late 1800s.Collection
Cultural Dolls, Sarah MidgleyCataloged By
Kat BezaireCategory
Doll