Daniru Jayasuriya wrote a feature on the Australian Message Stick Database for the quarterly science magazine Cosmos.
“It’s not accurate to say ‘message sticks are just like Western literacy […] because they’re addressing a different kind of problem that written practice isn’t adapted for.”
Kelly says we need to reevaluate beliefs about the use of the message sticks. Early literature makes assumptions about the message sticks being an aid to memory.