"message stick" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "message sticks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "message stick (plural message sticks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Australian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "1889, A. W. Howitt, Australian Message-sticks and Messengers, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the Annual Meeting, Volume 58, page 842,\nThe use of message-sticks is not universal in Australian tribes, and the degree of perfection reached in conveying information by them differs much."
        },
        {
          "text": "1956, Charles Pearcy Mountford, American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnheim Land, Art, Myth and Symbolism, page 466,\nThe scattered records of message sticks in the anthropological literature of the last seventy-five years indicate that, in one form or another, they have been, or still are being, used over most of aboriginal Australia."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Robert Layton, Who Needs the Past?: Indigenous Values and Archaeology, page 77",
          "text": "A quick scanning of the Australian Aboriginal literature on ‘message sticks’ indicates that it has been fashionable since at least the 1880s (for example, Howitt 1899) to interpret them as mnemonic devices for their bearers, who delivered the message verbally, plus perhaps asome totemic symbol to vouch for the bona fides of the bearer or the sender. Conversely, Yolngu assert that message sticks (balarm) themselves did (and still can) convey information about the precise time that, say, a ceremony is planned, as well as how many people were invited and expected to attend.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Diana Marshall, Aboriginal Australians, page 12",
          "text": "The message stick was an important way for groups that did not speak the same language to communicate. Before entering a new territory, Aboriginal Australians would hold up a message stick carved with their group′s totem.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A piece of wood, etched with angular lines and dots, traditionally used by Australian aborigines to communicate messages between different clans and language groups."
      ],
      "id": "en-message_stick-en-noun-~MB2SXwx",
      "links": [
        [
          "Australian",
          "Australian"
        ],
        [
          "aborigine",
          "aborigine"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australia) A piece of wood, etched with angular lines and dots, traditionally used by Australian aborigines to communicate messages between different clans and language groups."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "talking stick"
        },
        {
          "word": "stick letter"
        },
        {
          "word": "message-stick"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-message stick.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0e/En-au-message_stick.ogg/En-au-message_stick.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/En-au-message_stick.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "message stick"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "message sticks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "message stick (plural message sticks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Australian English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "1889, A. W. Howitt, Australian Message-sticks and Messengers, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the Annual Meeting, Volume 58, page 842,\nThe use of message-sticks is not universal in Australian tribes, and the degree of perfection reached in conveying information by them differs much."
        },
        {
          "text": "1956, Charles Pearcy Mountford, American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnheim Land, Art, Myth and Symbolism, page 466,\nThe scattered records of message sticks in the anthropological literature of the last seventy-five years indicate that, in one form or another, they have been, or still are being, used over most of aboriginal Australia."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Robert Layton, Who Needs the Past?: Indigenous Values and Archaeology, page 77",
          "text": "A quick scanning of the Australian Aboriginal literature on ‘message sticks’ indicates that it has been fashionable since at least the 1880s (for example, Howitt 1899) to interpret them as mnemonic devices for their bearers, who delivered the message verbally, plus perhaps asome totemic symbol to vouch for the bona fides of the bearer or the sender. Conversely, Yolngu assert that message sticks (balarm) themselves did (and still can) convey information about the precise time that, say, a ceremony is planned, as well as how many people were invited and expected to attend.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Diana Marshall, Aboriginal Australians, page 12",
          "text": "The message stick was an important way for groups that did not speak the same language to communicate. Before entering a new territory, Aboriginal Australians would hold up a message stick carved with their group′s totem.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A piece of wood, etched with angular lines and dots, traditionally used by Australian aborigines to communicate messages between different clans and language groups."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Australian",
          "Australian"
        ],
        [
          "aborigine",
          "aborigine"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australia) A piece of wood, etched with angular lines and dots, traditionally used by Australian aborigines to communicate messages between different clans and language groups."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-message stick.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0e/En-au-message_stick.ogg/En-au-message_stick.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/En-au-message_stick.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "talking stick"
    },
    {
      "word": "stick letter"
    },
    {
      "word": "message-stick"
    }
  ],
  "word": "message stick"
}