Before Farming 2003/1 (8) 1 Colonial collections of portable art and intercultural encounters in Aboriginal Australia Sally K May Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia sally.may@anu.edu.au Keywords American-Australian Scientific Expedition, Australia, portable art. Abstract From March to November 1948, 17 scientists made up the American-Australian Scientific Expedition (AASEAL) to Aboriginal North Australia. This expedition collected over 50,000 archaeological, ethnographic and natural history specimens from indigenous Australians. By examining a history of colonial collection strategies – especially those informed by modernism – it is possible both to understand the dynamics of AASEAL, from field experiences and encounters, collection strategies and general colonial attitudes towards indigenous Australians, to intercultural encounters. 1 Introduction Earlier in the previous millennium an alluring question was posed to me in regard to a particular colonial-indigenous encounter that I had been studying for the past year. The question has many possible articulations, but is perhaps best expressed as: how did western collectors of non-western material culture decide on what to collect, from whom, where? What was the mechanism of exchange and hence form of intercultural encounter that took place around these collecting activities? In particular, how could the phenomenon of exploration, politics, collecting and intercultural relations be further understood and nuanced from the field notes and particular artefacts that were collected by the colonial protagonists. You will not find in this paper an explanation or extensive study of the rock-art which was recorded during this encounter. Instead I focus upon portable art - particularly bark paintings. This particular art form has its origin as a component of Aboriginal people’s homes and has been collected in Australia by numerous individuals since at least the beginning of the nineteenth century. The bark paintings are in many cultural and practical ways connected to the rock-paintings of Arnhem Land – they are quite literally an extension of it - whereby people chose to empower their homes, whether rock shelters or bark houses, with paintings. Only the prefix ‘rock’ or ‘bark’ is variable and the dominant meanings informing the paintings remain equivalent. These bark paintings offered an opportunity to examine a specific mid-twentieth century Australian colonial encounter and contextualise it within the colonial history of collecting from the non-colonial ‘other’. In particular, I highlight the importance of art in investigations of intercultural relationships. This paper aims to convey both the essence of an historic encounter and to situate this encounter within an appropriate theoretical framework. It is therefore written as a narrative. I begin by outlining some common, but not always usual, pre-1950s attitudes of non-indigenous researchers and collectors towards ‘other’ cultures. I shall discuss