Insight in Australian ancient Aboriginal Rock- Art - Essay Example

Insight in Australian ancient Aboriginal Rock-Art (with reference to Bradshaw paintings) and evaluation of its relevance in a broader context of Aboriginal Art -Prajakta Kanegaonkar Rock Art is the most direct way of studying past human life. It is like a photograph of pre-historic life. It is found all over the world, in every continent. It is not only about survival evolution of Aboriginals, their own spiritual beliefs and lifestyle. Though fundamentally alike, Rock Art everywhere has regional characteristics and flavour. What is Rock-Art? There is no specific definition of Rock-Art. It is further divided into Pictographs and Petroglyphs. Pictographs are the ones, which are applied on the rock like paintings, drawings, stencils, daubing, and beeswax motifs. The ones, made by engravings, incisings, peckings, etchings etc, are known as petroglyphs. Rock here is a geological surface that is as soft as mud on which painting or engraving is done. Art however is a substitute word for image/picture/marking etc. Put together it would represent the art or visual images on the rock left or made by our pre-historic ancestors. It’s a form of visual, illustrated history of human race. Our pre-historic ancestors have represented themselves and their cultural and individual identities through the most durable medium of stone or rock Portrayal of rituals, customs and day-today life: The paintings in the Arnhem Land, central north coast of Australia portray the ecological changes. These are seen from the changing depiction of flowers and animals. Aboriginals from Arnhem say that the Mimi spirits have done the Rock-Art paintings. Mimis are graceful sticky figures, red ochre in colour and live in the crevices of the rocks, to come alive in the night. They have created self-portraits and are also known as dreaming ancestors who have passed on the traditions of painting, hunting, dancing, and composing music to generations. The birds, which were eaten, the weapons used for hunting are also seen. Paintings on Australia’s northern shore have Macassan Fishermen and their boats. Paintings in Central Australia have guns, axes, cattle and horses, ornaments, clubs, shields, boomerangs etc. Western Arnhem paintings are known as X-ray paintings, due to portrayal of animals such as turtles, kangaroos; fish with features such as skeleton, lungs, heart etc. Desert is done in a distinctive style of dots, circles and semi-circles. Bradshaw paintings: Joseph Bradshaw discovered these aboriginal paintings in Kimberley, northwest Australia in 1891, hence the name. As per the preliminary tests carbon dating technology age of these paintings is determined as 4000 years old, or even more than that. There is a possibility that these could be dated as back as mid-Holocene age or even prior to that. These paintings are made in earth colours such as reds, browns, yellows, and black and white. These colours are made from natural resources or ingredients. Red is used widely and is treated as a sacred colour. It comes from variety of ochre and minerals. Yellow comes from ochre, dust of particular ants’ nests, minerals, a variety of fungus. Manganese-oxide crushed charcoal or charred barks provided for black. Pipe clay or kaolin helped in making of white. Brushes were made from chewed twigs, palm leaves, grasses. Blowing the paint from the mouth made stenciled designs. Use of fingers, hands, sticks and feather can also be seen in the paintings. These paintings are divided into two groups. Bradshaw figures was the term used to describe the older figures. Certain mythological paintings are also known as Wandjina within the aborigines. The oldest human figures are in a broad naturalistic form with tassels hanging from their bodies, hence known as tasseled figures. These are figures with straight legs. These are found in light shades of red The second group is known as bent knee group or sash figures, mainly because these lacks tassels and are found wearing a ‘skirt’ or ‘apron’ or more looked like a bag which is why the term ‘sash’ comes into being. Their legs are bent slightly in the knees. These are painted in mulberry to blackish colours. Description of tasselled figures: Tassels are found from the waist or hip but could also be from headdress or body. They usually occur in sets of 3 as 2 long and one short tassel. Materials such as feathers, grass or fur are found twined in the tassel. Some tribes like Worora wore the tassels around their hips and not waists. Skirts may have been made from grass. A swelling on the wrists indicates wearing of a bracelet. Ankle bracelets are found on some of the tasseled figures. A band decorating the elbows is also sometimes seen along with feathers, leaves or furs. Number of fingers is correct in some of the tasselled figures while in some other they are incorrect in number. The sash or the bent knee figures fingers are not shown. This would be because the figure is made to hold boomerang or other weapon in the hand. Tasselled figures do not show weapons so clearly as the bent knee/sash figures do. Wherever these objects are painted these are beside the body and not held directly by the figure. There is also a possibility if these weapons are painted colour of the same have weathered away. There are no evident spears, shields or clubs painted in both the groups. There are poles or thick sticks found in tasselled figures. Boomerangs in tasselled figures appear rising vertically or just beside the hand. It cannot be said from the depiction that these weapons were actually used for fighting. It seems like these were mainly used for entertainment purpose like juggling. Painted dots around the bodies in tasselled figures show body movement, body heat or body odour. These are however absent in the bent knee or sash figures. The head shape is portrayed as quite round. There are no beards, necklaces or earrings found or could have been painted in white colour, which got weathered away. Various artists have contributed to the diversity that is observed. Description of Bent knee or Sash Figures: The boomerangs painted in this group are larger ones and not the short ones, which are used for hunting. There are no spears, clubs and fighting and hunting scenes either. These figures are painted in mulberry to dark pigments. It could be because of some special ritual involved while making of the colour or the quality of stone or the aborigines painted would be of darker skin. The distinction in the colour could also be to differentiate festive and martial attire. The darker attire could also be for the martial purpose. The postures differ to confirm the moods of the paintings. Both the types of figures have not been painted at the same time. Chances are the same artists who painted tasselled figures painted sash figures later. Waistbands are present in some groups of the sash figures and absent in others. It is apparent that the artists wanted to say something really very significant through the portrayal of bent knees. It could be that there is dancing or jumping going on. Lack of weapons further confirms that there is a ritualistic or ceremonial dance going on. Bent knee or sash figures have knobbed end and there is a pendant hanging from the headdress in most figures. There are also feather adornments in headdress found in bent knee or sash figures. Shapes of dilly bags are seen which could also be fans. Flywhisks are also identified. Forearms are wider than upper arms in some of the figures because of bracelets. Beeswax Rock-Art in Kimberley: This type of Rock-Art is done by application of lumps or dots of beeswax on the rock surfaces. Aborigines keep an eye for sign of bees. The contents of the hive were scooped out and eaten directly as the bees are stingless in this region. After sucking the clumps the remaining wax, was a useful commodity. Beehives are a common occurrence in the Rock paintings in this area. The wax procured from these hives is beaten and mixed with charcoal powder or ochre for the desired colour and then used to paint. Simple human figures, animals (Dingo, Turtle), Wandjina and other Spirit figures, animal tracks (macropod) are made from beeswax. Relevance of Rock-Art and Bradshaw paintings: with reference to Aboriginal Arts development and evolution: Although it was Joseph Bradshaw’s name given to the aboriginal art found in Kimberley, there were prior expeditions taken in search of these paintings as well. The entire Kimberley region is rugged and is not easily accessible even now. It extends to some 422000 square kilometers. The sharks, crocodiles would have also prevented the people to visit these paintings. Even today the population of Kimberley is not beyond 29-30,000 people which are an equal mix of aboriginals and whites. But these settlements are also clustered around eastern and western extremities and do not run deep. Very surprisingly one of the species depicted in the Rock-Art seems to appear like reindeers. This calls for various alternatives. It is not possible that these species are not identified by the zoology person. If these species painted are of some variety of deer, then in the ice-age the communication between Asian and Australian inhabitants seem to be great. However this type of a communication would require ocean-crossing boats of high-end capacity even when the levels of the waters were low during the era. It is difficult to do a carbon dating test on these painting as mentioned earlier. It also posed a danger of damaging the painting samples which were selected. These paintings which were already subjected to weathering over the years could not have been exposed to further damages. It was Rhys Jones who in 1979 predicted that the first human settlement in Australia might have 50000 years ago. The cognizance of this statement set in when in 1990 traces of human occupation were found in Malakunanja, a rock shelter in Kakadu national park and were confirmed to be dated between 50000 – 60000 years ago. Additionally in all the levels of these occupations, evidences of painting pigments, quantities of ochres have also been found. It is also suggested that period of arrival of human being in Australia is said to be C. 60000 BC. It is observed that Wandjina paintings are superimposed over Bradshaw paintings. This also goes further to reinstate that Bradshaw paintings are way older than what they are imagined to be. As per Grahame Walsh’s observation Kimberley has witnessed distinctively different styles that have sustained a history of nearly forty millennia of human occupation. In the year 1995 Alan Watchman with the help of radiocarbon method tested a few samples of the Rock-art at Kimberley again, only to confirm that these paintings were circa 2000 BC, older than the era of Julius Caesar. Another such sample of Tasselled Bradshaws resulted the date to be circa 500 AD well within the times of Wandjina paintings. An interesting theory would be about the Boab trees that are found in the Kimberley region. The rationale behind these trees stretches to Madagascar. Either baobab nuts wafted through the ocean currents to finally land on the Australian shore or prehistoric families fleeing the rising sea levels of Madagascar brought it with them in the first ever migration history in human history. It is also interesting to note that stenciled hand prints dated as back as 50000 BC have been found all over the world. The hand prints found in Southern France and Spain have been firmly dated as 20000 years ago. It is interesting to note that these stencils range from women, children, adults and are found all over the world. Another startling factor about Bradshaws to be noted is, the same iconography existed over a large area or a considerable geographical distance. This immediately goes to confirm that same religion, same cultural themes, same high artistic standards were spread and practiced for several millennia. The reason why these paintings need to be studied with their location reference is because their strong sense of identity, their affinity to the landscape, vegetation around can be seen in the paintings they made. This is very intrinsic to all the aboriginal people and not only to the Australian Aboriginals. These sites would not be scenic today but in the prehistoric times these would definitely be a beautiful vegetate with its rich flora and fauna that is seen in the paintings. For ex: The thylacines painted in the Bradshaws are very much indigenous to the Australian continent, which were exterminated by the Dingoes. It is estimated that these marsupial creatures were tamed by the aboriginals and regularly feature in the rock paintings. Another tradition that has been passed down to the generations of these aboriginals is the re-touching of the paintings. Whenever weathering of a Wandjina painting happened then it was positively expected that individuals who are suitably trained and initiated for the job would do the re-touching of these paintings. These individuals would belong to the Wandjina tribes such as Ngarinyin, Worrora, Wunambal. It was understood that these people would be careful while doing such kind of a job and would use natural ingredients and colours prescribed and handed down by the generations before. Sadly this art though not preserved today needs to be taken care of for the sake of great historical heritage. Presentation of boomerang is another fine example of how the arms and weapons used changed form over a period of time and relevance of which changed through the distribution of these tribes over a widespread area. Boomerang is very well presented in the pre-Bradshaw and Bradshaw paintings. It goes ahead to show that present-day Aboriginals retain a strong link with their ancestors. People in the Bradshaw paintings could be seen as exhibiting certain cultural differences from the lifestyle of their Aboriginal ancestors as this was being practiced till the European colonization took place. With the massive environmental changes that took place, with new people introducing new weapons and arms, this difference can simply looked at as a clash of old and new. This could also result in the perceiving of Bradshaw people as more advanced than the Aboriginals, as noted by the European colonists. This could also be attributed to the Australian landscape. The effects of which are observed in the Tasmanian Aboriginal people who were cut off from their natives on the main continent of Australia. It has been remarked by Tim Flannery:* A small group of people is less likely to come up with technological innovations. If the group is completely isolated, then new ideas cannot reach it. Because of this innovation in material culture is slowed. Because the population is small, activities and knowledge may be lost simply through the early death of skilled people before they can pass their skills to the next generation. As per the statement above one cannot consider that post Bradshaw era the civilization declined. It rather adapted very well and with intelligence to the changed circumstances around. It is obvious that these were the people with deep-rooted wisdom and presence who treated their lives with great nobility. To sum up quote from Matisse speaks an important bearing on Bradshaw paintings: The significance of a work of art varies according to the period in which you are looking at it. Should we confine ourselves to our own time and consider the work with todays fresh new sensibility, or should we study the period during which it was created, place it back in its own time and see it with the eyes of the people of those days, so as to understand what the work signified when it was conceived and what it meant to its contemporaries? *From Lost world of Kimberley: Extraordinary new glimpses of Australia’s Ice Age by Ian Wilson Page 263 Bibliography: 1. Aboriginal Australia 2. The Archaeology of Rock-Art: Christopher Chippindale and Paul S.C.Tacon 3. Lost World of Kimberley: Extraordinary New Glimpses of Australia’s Ice-Age: Ian Wilson 4. Beeswax Rock-Art in the Kimberley, Western Australia – David Welch (Rock Art Research Volume 12 1995) 5. AMS Radiocarbon Age Estimates for early Rock Paintings in the Kimberley, N.W. Australia: Preliminary Results – A L Watchman, G L Walsh, M Morwood, C Tuniz (Rock Art Research Volume 14, 1997) 6. Composition and source of dust on Split Rock Paintings, Australia – Alan Watchman (Rock Art Research Volume 15, 1998) 7. Early ‘Naturalistic’ Human Figures in the Kimberley, Australia – David Welch (Rock Art Research Volume 10, 1993) 8. Quotation of Matisse: www.bradshawfoundation.com (Rock Art Research is a journal published by Australian Rock Art Research Association) 9. Handbook of Rock Art Research – David Whitely Read More