Description
Early engraved upper body portrait of an aboriginal man, identified as Tenberry (or Tenbury), and described as ‘Chief of the Murray Bend tribes‘, taken from a Daguerreotype photograph made before 1855. This engraving is taken from the earliest extant photograph of an Indigenous person produced in South Australia.
After the explorer Edward Eyre was appointed Protector of Aborigines between 1841-44 at Moorundie, South Australia, Tenberry became the native constable, and was credited with ending the conflict between black and white across the region. When Eyre returned to Britain in 1844 he took Tenberry’s son Warrulan with him.
Reference:
Courtesy Pitt Rivers Museum: 1998.249.33.1
