Iconic painted shields and baskets made by Aboriginal people of the North Queensland rainforest region have been collected and placed in museums all over the world. We describe the historical ethnographic context of the production and use of these things and explore transformations in their value through time. These things are of value to museums and were of value to the collectors who originally procured them. They were also of value to the Aboriginal producers and are of value today to their descendants. We reflect upon the concept of value by considering the different values that inform how the shields and baskets were valued in the past, and how their worth continues to be evaluated today.bjects made by Aboriginal people of the North Queensland rainforest region have historically been collected as artefacts and placed in museums all over the world. Today, there are numerous Aboriginal artists who refer to, or draw upon, these museum objects in the creation of contemporary art works.In this paper we focus on rainforest Aboriginal artefacts in relation to the concept of value. These objects were of value to museums and to the collectors who originally procured them. They also were of value to the Aboriginal producers and continue to be of value today to their descendants. There are many different values that inform how the worth of these objects was, and continues to be, evaluated.We argue that to value something involves an active process of evaluation which, whether one is aware of it or not, requires one to draw upon certain values. In any such process, particular values may be dominant and others muted. As Gregory notes, people create and constantly switch between multiple value systems according to political context (8). Thus, value relations are by definition political relations and entail contestations of power (see Gregory 33; Strathern 218-19).O
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