17 ‘ PRIMITIVISM ’ , ANTHROPOLOGY , AND THE CATEGORY OF ‘ PRIMITIVE ART ’ Fred

In Sydney, Australia, in 1992, in a district near the old Rocks area now incorporated into a tourist district, the sign on the gallery door reads ‘Aboriginal and Tribal Art Museum and Shop’. Inside, the objects range from New Guinea baskets and wood sculptures and Aboriginal boomerangs to bark and acrylic paintings. In 1994, Sotheby’s catalog for their 1994 auction of ‘Tribal Art’ in New York changed the name it was using for its title, after protest from Indigenous Australians, from ‘Churinga’ (a word referring to sacred objects of Aboriginal people in Central Australia and specifically to one of the most important items in this sale) to the more general ‘Tribal Art.’