The Indigenous Australian Matchcoat or Cloak.WARNING: Photographs Of Aboriginals That Are No Longer Living.

When thinking of the Australian Aboriginals, many picture near naked people living in a desert. But there is far more to the indigenous people of Australia. These people lived the width & breadth of this vast country, from the wet & dry seasons of the North, to the Snowy Mountains in the south & everywhere in between. 
In the cold climes, the possum & Kangaroo skin matchcoats/cloaks kept these people warm & dry long before the white man found Australia.

A Koorie woman wearing a Bobuck cloak.

The men sitting are wearing wool blankets whilst the standing men wear Possum skin cloaks.

Image courtesy Fauchery Album, LaTrobe Library..

This princely inhabitant of Bundyang wearing a possum skin cloak was drawn by OW Brierly in about 1843.

Kangaroo skin matchcoat.

Queen Mary wearing a Possum skin Matchcoat.

'Queen Mary - Ballarat', c. 1870, by Kruger, Frederick, courtesy of Sovereign Hill Gold Museum.

Wamba Wamba possum skin cloak  

© Ngarra Murray

The Healing and Gathering Possum Skin Cloak, on display in Melbourne 

(photo: Jess Kritzer)