Rock Art In Australia

In Australia there are traditions of painting and engraving on rock that stretch back thousands of years. It is thought that the oldest surviving examples so far found are the rock engravings in the Olary region of South Australia which may be over 30 000 years old. Some Aboriginal engravings and paintings are in fact so old that we cannot know who made them, why they were made, or what their real meaning might be. We can only guess, based on our knowledge of Aboriginal life past and present, the stories and legends of Aboriginal people and, maybe, what the pictures look like to present-day eyes. Other rock paintings, however, are relatively recent and are part of living tradition.

In Australia there are traditions of painting and engraving on rock that stretch back thousands of years. It is thought that the oldest surviving examples so far found are the rock engravings in the Olary region of South Australia which may be over 30 000 years old. Some Aboriginal engravings and paintings are in fact so old that we cannot know who made them, why they were made, or what their real meaning might be. We can only guess, based on our knowledge of Aboriginal life past and present, the stories and legends of Aboriginal people and, maybe, what the pictures look like to present-day eyes. Other rock paintings, however, are relatively recent and are part of living tradition.

They are still very important to people who know and respect their meanings. A few are even repainted by men and women who have the traditional right to do so. In places such as Arnhem Land, NT, and Central Australia the symbols and motifs painted on rock also appear in other forms of expression such as painting on bark or canvas reflecting a continuing tradition of great vigour. Aboriginal people have occupied Australia for many thousands of years at least 50 000 according to the latest estimates. 

Although all Aboriginal people shared a similar way of life and similar religious beliefs, they belonged to separate groups that had their own languages, country, legends and ceremonies. They lived in different environments and had different histories. So it is not surprising that there is a wide variety of styles and subject matter in the engravings and paintings found throughout the continent.

Images of the Dreaming

According to the beliefs of many Aboriginal groups, people have been in Australia since the beginning -the Dreaming. During this momentous period the ancestral spirits came up out of the earth and down from the sky to walk on the land. They shaped its rocks, rivers, mountains, forests and deserts; they also created all the people, animals and plants that were to live in the country and laid down the patterns their lives were to follow. It was the spirit ancestors who gave Aboriginal people their laws, customs and codes of conduct, and who are the source of the songs, dances, designs and rituals that are the basis of Aboriginal religious expression.

When they had completed their work, the creators returned to the land. They became creeks, pools, piles of rock, or remained as outlines or impressions on rock walls for people to see and trace with paint. Throughout northern Australia spirit-figures can be found that are said to be the actual ancestral beings rather than the work of any human artist. People inherited these sacred pictures and it has been their responsibility to freshen colour's, repair any damage, and repaint them from time to time.

The Wandjina paintings of the central Kimberley are believed to be the powerful creative heroes themselves, cloud beings who control the rain, storms and floods. Their painted images show them, as basically human in form, with large bodies outlined in red, great dark eyes, no mouths and 'haloes' of cloud and lightning.

Similarly, Aboriginal people of western Arnhem Land say that their Mimi rock pictures were painted not by humans but by the Mimi spirits. The drawings, usually in red ochre, show elegant, graceful stick-like human figures in action - fighting, running, dancing, leaping and hunting. The Mimi lives in the nooks and crannies of the rocky landscape, coming out at night. They are said to be so thin and frail that they can emerge from their hiding places only when there is no wind, otherwise they would be blown away. The Mimi not only created these lively self-portraits, but also are the Dreaming ancestors who taught people to paint, hunt, dance and compose songs.

Thousands of years ago Aboriginal people painted and engraved on rocks, some of the aboriginal engravings are the oldest surviving examples of this from said to be around 40 000 years old, some are so old in-fact that we don't know who done them, why they were made or what they mean, we can only guess.

Aboriginal rock-art is the stories of the dreamtime, the beginning– the dreaming. During this period the ancestral spirits came up from the earth and down from the sky to walk the land. They shaped the land creating rivers, mountains, lakes, rocks, forests, deserts, plants, animals and also created people. It was the spirit ancestors who gave aboriginal people their laws, customs and codes of conduct, and who are the basis of songs, dances, paintings and rituals that are the basis of the aboriginal culture. Rock paintings are still very important to the aboriginal people, in many different ways. Each site belonged to a different group which had the right of access and responsibility for looking after the paintings or engravings and for their ceremonies.

The majority of rock paintings were made in shelters protected from the weather. These shelters vary in size and shape. Rock paintings are found all around Australia but the most spectacular ones are in the north of Australia; Northern Territory; Cape York and the Kimberly region of Western Australia. The Aboriginal painters use earth colour—Reds, Browns, yellows, Blacks and Whites all used from natural ingredients. Certain red ochre's were so highly valued that people would travel or trade over hundreds of kilometers to obtain them.

Similarly, Aboriginal people of western Arnhem Land say that their Mimi rock pictures were painted not by humans but by the Mimi spirits. The drawings, usually in red ochre, show elegant, graceful stick-like human figures in action - fighting, running, dancing, leaping and hunting. The Mimi lives in the nooks and crannies of the rocky landscape, coming out at night. They are said to be so thin and frail that they can emerge from their hiding places only when there is no wind, otherwise they would be blown away. The Mimi not only created these lively self-portraits, but also are the Dreaming ancestors who taught people to paint, hunt, dance and compose songs.

A living tradition

Rock pictures are still very important to Aboriginal people, in many different ways. Originally each site belonged to a particular group which had the right of access and the responsibility for looking after the paintings or engravings and for any necessary ceremonies. Many religious images were more than mere pictures. They represented the actual spiritual energy of the creative ancestors and when repainted or retouched in a ritual context their sacred power was released, ensuring that the seasons came at their proper time, plants and animals were in plentiful supply, and children were born.

In some areas, such as Arnhem Land and Central Australia, rock painting retains its religious significance. The Warlpiri and Pitjantjatjara people of the deserts still retouch their sacred images for specific ritual purposes. Larry Jakamarra Nelson a Warlpiri man and teacher of the old traditions who lives at Yuendumu in the Northern Territory, says:

"When I look at my tjukurpa [dreaming] paintings it makes me feel good - happy in kuturu [heart], spirit. Everything is there: all there in the caves, not lost This is my secret side. This is my home: inside me. Our dreaming, secret side: we must hold on to this, like our fathers, looking after it. We give to our sons when we die. The sons keep this from their fathers, grandfathers. The sons will remember, they can carry on, not be lost. And it is still there: fathers' country with rock-hole, painted cave. The people keep their ceremony things and pictures: they make them new. They bring young boys for learning to the caves: telling the stories, giving the laws from grandfathers' fathers, learning to do the paintings - tjukurpa way."

(From the preface to Elaine Godden Rock Paintings of Aboriginal Australia)

As Larry Jakamarra Nelson indicates  the paintings demonstrate group ownership of sites and country, Aboriginal connections to their land. Even where images are no longer painted or repainted, they can still be very important to Aboriginal people who know the stories and meanings associated with them.

In many parts of Australia, however, the history of the last 200 years has meant the loss of land and of traditional religious beliefs and practices. Nevertheless, the rock paintings and engravings found in these areas still have great symbolic significance to Aboriginal communities. They are regarded as a major link with the past, a part of Aboriginal heritage, a record of Aboriginal history, and a source of identity to present generations of Aboriginal people.

Rock engravings

Engraving is a very old technique. Engravings (also called petroglyphs) are made by removing part of a rock surface either by rubbing (abrading) or by hitting (pecking) it with a stone or other object. The earliest petroglyphs were probably abraded grooves. Abraded designs were produced by repeatedly rubbing a soft rock such as sandstone with a harder stone. Pecked designs were made by striking the rock surface with a pointed stone or shell to form a series of small, round holes. The pecked designs took a variety of forms - concentric circles, lines, the outlines of animals, people, fish, birds, weapons, reptiles, animal tracks and mythical beings. In certain engravings (sometimes called pecked intagho) the whole surface of the picture was hollowed out.

Rock engravings are commonly found in the open on natural rock exposures such as large flat rocks or cliff faces. They can be very large, especially in the Sydney sandstone district where there is a whale 13m long and 3.5m wide. Although most engravings are hundreds or thousands of years old, some that show sailing ships were created as recently as the time of European settlement.

Rock paintings

Unlike engravings 1 the great majority of rock paintings were made in shelters where they are protected from the weather by an overhang. These rock shelters vary in size and shape: from deep caves to rock surfaces protected by only the smallest of ledges. Rock paintings are found all over Australia but the most spectacular cave galleries are in the north of the Northern Territory; in the Laura district of Cape York, Queensland; and in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Here the abundance of rock formations and natural pigments presented Aboriginal people with an almost endless supply of surfaces and colours for their painted images.

The Aboriginal painters used earth colour's - reds, browns and yellows, black and white - from natural ingredients. Red was a very important, often sacred, colour and widely used. It came from a variety of ochre's and minerals. Certain red ochre's were so highly valued that people would travel or trade over hundreds of kilometers to obtain them. Yellows came from several sources such as ochre, the dust of particular ants' nests, minerals, and a certain kind of fungus. Manganese oxide crushed charcoal or charred bark provided the colour black and white came from kaolin or pipeclay.

The paint was applied to the rock surface in a variety of ways. For stenciled designs, paint was blown from the mouth. Other pictures were painted using fingers, the palm of the hand, sticks or feathers. Brushes were also made from grasses, chewed twigs, and narrow strips of stringy bark or palm leaves.

Subjects and styles

Aboriginal people made pictures of a wide variety of subjects including mythical beings 1 humans, birds, animals, fish, reptiles and animal tracks as well as more abstract designs. As we have seen, many of (these works were connected with religion, ritual and ceremony. The abstract designs often contained 'coded' information - the meaning of the symbols might be known only to those who had gone through special ceremonies.

However, painting and engraving could be a secular as well as a religious activity. Many painted sites, in particular, contain a vivid record of the daily life of the people who created them. The rock walls form a sort of 'pictorial history book' which can include pictures of extinct giant marsupials or the story of contact between Aborigines and other peoples. For example, there are paintings showing the visits of Macassan fishermen and their boats to Australia's northern shores hundreds of years ago. There are also images of European sailing ships, as well as drawings of weapons, tools and animals the white settlers brought with them. In Central Australia guns, axes, cattle and horses are pictured along with ceremonial ornaments, boomerangs, clubs, shields and the more abstract designs of the Western Desert.

Styles of rock painting vary from region to region. Stencils, however, are found almost everywhere. They are mostly of hands ranging in size from baby to adult. These images were made by holding an object, whether a hand or foot or utensil or weapon, against the surface of the rock and spraying liquid pigment from the mouth over and around it so that its clear outline was left on the rock. Western Arnhem Land is the home of the painting style known as X-ray, a name given to it by Europeans because the pictures show internal features such as the skeleton, heart, lungs and other organs of the creatures represented as well as their external shapes. Many of these paintings are of food animals such as turtles, kangaroos and fish, and are thought to be a form of hunting and fishing magic.

The cave and rock imagery of the desert also has its own distinctive style. The principal motifs are a variety of circles, semicircles, spirals, dots and lines. Totemic ancestors are portrayed in simple lines, tracks and geometric designs. However, contact paintings - usually illustrating animals and objects that are not part of the Aboriginal mythological universe - are generally naturalistic rather than abstract in form.

Deterioration

Rock paintings are remarkably fragile and can be damaged in many ways. Wind, sun, rain, fire and dust all take their toll. Animals such as buffalo, pigs, cattle and horses cause paints to flake and crumble when they rub against the surfaces. Paintings are also damaged by the activity of birds and certain insects such as termites and mud wasps that build nests on rock walls.

Plants, too, can have an effect. Moulds, fungi, algae and lichen grow over many painting sites, and tree roots can cause whole rock surfaces to crack or fall away. Ochre paints are easily washed away, or simply fade through natural weathering. On the other hand, water rich in silica can protect painted surfaces by sealing the paintings and protecting them from physical, chemical and botanical damage.

Perhaps most damaging of all are the activities of people. Visitors disturb dust which coats painted surfaces and may physically abrade or chemically react with the paints. Motorists, tourists and vandals are, intentionally or unintentionally, accelerating the deterioration of many paintings.

Protection

Various protective measures are being taken. The simplest involve the erection of fences to keep out wild, feral and domestic animals and the construction of barriers to keep cars and campfires at a distance. Other measures include silicone drip lines to divert the flow of water away from decorated surfaces removal of lichen, and vegetation management to prevent damage from bushfires.

Another, increasingly recognised way of protecting sites is to provide visitor facilities that encourage appreciation of the paintings and engravings at a certain distance. This may involve the provision of boardwalks and low barriers to keep visitors to a path or to elevate them so they have a better viewing position. Informative signs and take-away brochures alert visitors to the fragility and cultural significance of the paintings and engravings. Guided tours, especially those given by Aboriginal custodians, are another important means of education.

Basic scientific research - including projects funded by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies - is seeking methods that will provide physical protection for the paintings and engravings. This research may eventually include projects aimed at understanding the formation and role of silica skins which develop on painted surfaces; the monitoring of pigments used in paintings to establish what conditions affect their longevity; and studies on how changes in the micro­climate affect pigment fading and adhesion.

In preserving Aboriginal paintings and engravings, it is most important to consider the knowledge and wishes of the Aboriginal custodians. Until the coming of Europeans, Aborigines did not need to concern themselves with how well or how long the pigments they painted with would survive. Their traditional responsibilities ensured that important paintings were renewed.

Today, however, the descendants of many custodial groups do not have the knowledge and access necessary to maintain sites that contain significant imagery. For some Aboriginal custodians, so much knowledge has been lost that their primary concern now is to preserve what already exists and prevent further damage and deterioration. Even so the removal of rock paintings or engravings to a museum or art gallery for safe keeping is generally not an acceptable solution, because the meaning and place of the imagery is as important to Aboriginal people as the pictures themselves.

Rock art photos from top to bottom: Grahame L. Walsh Resource Managers Pty Ltd AIATSIS Grahame L. Walsh Thanks to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC)

TOP