Can one tread on the heart of Australia?

Tourists watching the sunrise at Uluru

Uluru, the Red Heart of Australia. Can one tread on it? For the people who have lived here for millennia this is a sacred place. It is an altar. Sacred ceremonies are performed at its foot. Contact with the invisible world of ancestors is made here. Contact with the world of dreamings. Stories of Dreamtime are told here.

There is a footpath for tourists around Uluru. Tourists keep shooting photos one after another but in some places there are notice boards saying: “This is a sacred place, please refrain from taking pictures here”. Some even respect these notices.

The heart of Australia. Can one tread on it? There is a notice board before the entry to the trail leading to the top saying: “Please refrain from climbing the mountain, this is a holy place”. Some even respect this notice, too. Nevertheless when the trail is open – which is not always the case because the mountain can be dangerous, many people have died there – the crowd of people climbing look from afar like ants. Mountains are there to be climbed, aren't they? Who would worry about superstitions of stone age people? Who would worry about the fact that “the owner of the dreaming” lives nearby and that the dreaming says that the mountain should not be climbed. Who would worry about the Aborigines anyway? They are probably the most primitive people on earth, aren't they? Not only they walked naked in the desert and didn't erect any buildings of stone, they didn't even have any political organisation, nobody to buy land from. The British Crown tried to act legally wherever possible and where it could be done the land for colonies was bought from local leaders. Even American Indians had their chiefs with whom treaties could be negotiated and from whom land could be bought, but the Australian Aborigines didn't even have chiefs. There was complete anarchy, every family acted on its own. Families owned dreamings connected to certain places but how can one buy a dreaming? Even if that were possible, does a dreaming entitle one to own the land? Anyway the concept of dremings was definitely beyond the mental horizon of the representatives of the British Crown in the 19^th century. They simply decided that land in Australia had no owners and was for the taking.

Aborigines watching tourists watching the sunset.

And they took it. Initially for agriculture. Later, in places where it didn't rain enough to grow any crops, for pastures. Somebody lived there already and lived off hunting kangaroos? They could work as stockmen on sheep farms, after all a position of a stockman is more prestigious than a lizard hunter. Lizard hunter, because all the kangaroos vanished from the land where sheep ate all the grass.

Some Aborigines did indeed work as stockmen, but not all. Some ran away even farther to the desert, to places where it didn't pay to keep sheep. They'd rather eat lizards than have anything to do with those intruders who come and take land as if it didn't belong to anybody, who have no respect for holy places and simply tread on them. Or erect buildings of stone on them and put up fences of barbed wire around.

In 1901 Australia gained independence. That is – the intruders gained independence and those people who had lived there earlier weren't even considered citizens of the new country. It was assumed that they were too primitive and wouldn't understand what 'to be a citizen' means. It was also assumed that the state will look after them until such a time when they do understand this. They had to be civilised. Special settlements were built in which this civilizing was to be conducted. The biggest of those settlements and certainly the best known was Papunya, situated some 240 kilometres west from Alice Springs. Nomad Aborigines from various, often very distant peoples have been gathered there. From Arrente people, whose lands used to be in the east, around Alice Springs. From Pitjantjatjara people, who used to live in the south, around the holy mountain of Uluru. From Pintupi people, who until recently lived far to the west, in the Gibson Desert. They were brought in lorries to be civilized. They were given clothing to wear because in Australia it is illegal to walk naked in public places. They were given food and told to eat at the table because only savages eat sitting on the ground. They weren't allowed to drink alcohol because 'wards of the state' are like children. White citizens of Australia could consume alcohol but the Aborigines weren't citizens. Supplying alcohol to persons not allowed to consume it was illegal and one could go to prison for that.

Uluru close up.

Missionaries came to the desert as well to provide spiritual food. The stone age superstitions had to be uprooted. Not far from Papunya a Lutheran mission named Hermannsburg was set up. Missionaries were good people, they saw the misery of the Aborigines and brought material help, although their main aim was to save souls. In their opinion the superstitions were a barrier to salvation and could not be tolerated. Beliefs in dreamings according to which a mountains was created by some ancestors had to be uprooted because all the mountains have been created by God as the Bible says. The missionaries could not tolerate wild dances to honour that ancestor. They could not tolerate treating a mountain like an altar. The Aborigines weren't daft and quickly understood that it is better not to inform the missionaries about their ceremonies. The old practices went underground, they were celebrated in secret. Civilizing meant basically that the Aborigines copied superficial behaviours of the intruders. If they were good at it they could even get Australian citizenship.

Hermannsburg lies in a picturesque area, among pink hills and greyish-green eucalypti. A perfect country to come and paint with watercolours. This is exactly what an artist named Rex Batterbee did in 1930s. He roamed the area with his watercolours and painted. He even had an exhibition in Hermannsburg. Aborigines also saw this exhibition and one of them, named Albert Namatjira, asked the artist if he could teach him his art. The artist agreed and Albert Namatjira learned it and became quite good at it. He even had exhibitions in distant cities on the coast. He became famous because he was a living proof that an Aborigine can learn to paint pictures no worse than his white teacher. In 1954 he was flown to Canberra to be presented to the Queen and in 1957 he was even given Australian citizenship. And he was earning real money selling pictures.

A picture from the Hermannsburg School

Perhaps Albert Namatjira could have became rich but for the ages-old law of the Aborigines that tells them to share immediately whatever they have. Meat of a kangaroo is divided and shared among the relatives and so is the money gained by selling watercolours. According to the Australian law Albert Namatjira could buy alcohol but according to the ages-old law he could not consume it on his own. Here the two laws came into conflict. One day Albert celebrated some occasion with his family, having bought some drinks for the occasion and was promptly arrested and sent to prison for supplying alcohol to persons not eligible. That's the benefits of citizenship for you.

Albert Namatjira shared not only possessions but also his skills. As the father teaches his sons to use a spear so Albert Namatjira taught his sons and other relatives how to paint. This is how 'The School of Hermannsburg' came into being. The painters of this school painted watercolours depicting landscapes of the desert heart of Australia. Virgin landscapes, without people and without any sign of white man's activity.

Albert Namatjira became famous but more as a curiosity than a great artist. His disciples did not become famous at all. This kind of art is considered second-rate at best, good enough perhaps to be sold to tourists as souvenirs. It certainly is not traditional Aboriginal art, in their old society there was no room for this kind of pictures. Where would a nomad without a house hang a watercolour? Anyway, what would he need a picture of a landscape for if he lived in this landscape for real?

There was, however, a secret in those pictures that was hidden from white man's eye and there was no point to explain it to him. Albert Namatjira did not choose the subjects for his paintings because they were pretty views. White buyers could think so but it was not the case. Albert Namatjira painted what he was entitled to paint. He was the guardian of dreamings connected to certain places and it was those places he painted. A landscape is not just a landscape, a mountain is not just a big rock. A mountain is a holy place, an altar not made with human hands and this is what makes it holy.

What is a watercolour depicting a holy mountain? Isn't it like an icon that tries to show us a glimpse of the unseen world? Isn't it like an icon that reminds one about a holy place? Especially if one does not live in that place any more?

Kata Tjuta rocks near Uluru.

You will find this article, and many others, in my book "ART ETHNO".

A Selfie with an Aborigine

Australian dotscape from above

The red heart of Australia is covered with dots. This is what it looks like from above, red earth and many dots of many colours: light brown, dark brown, almost black, greyish green and – when the rain falls – also vivid green. When the rain falls the riverbeds are full of water and on flat areas temporary lakes appear, riverbanks turn green and frogs crawl out of mud. All this doesn't last long, after some days the water either dries out or disappears underground, frogs dig themselves deep into the mud to sleep and the vivid green dots turn greyish again. In some places water stays underground but one cannot see it, it is hidden in places where ancestors hid it.

People have lived among these dots for millennia. They know where the water is hidden because the ancestors left them dreamings that tell them about it. The ancestors left them dreamings that have to be told and danced regularly so the next generations know how to live. For example how to find water hidden underground, how to share it and how long it will last. In some places there is water hidden in the ground but not too much of it, for a family bivouacking there it may last for a few days. It cannot be used for washing, this would be wasting a precious resource. In the old days there was no need to wash clothes because the desert people walked around naked. On special occasions they painted their bodies with coloured ochres, one has to look good on special occasions after all. They painted their bodies in stripes, dots or circles, there was a specific design for each occasion. There was the whole art of body painting that was passed from generation to generation. It was used only on special occasions, normally people of the desert walked around the desert naked. This was a rational behaviour. A rational use of what nature gave to those people.

The ground on which the dreamings were danced had to be specially decorated. Each dreaming was connected to a place and a design representing this place was created on the ground. Each dreaming was a property of a family, it could not be danced by just anybody. Dreamings were passed from generation to generation in the families, who looked after the places given to them by the ancestors. This was the ancient law.

About two hundred years ago people who didn't know the ancient law came to Australia. They had a different law which said that a man can buy land for money and then the buyer can do whatever he likes on his land. He could cut all the trees, shoot all the animals, drill a hole in the ground and suck all the water hidden in it. That water hidden in other places may then also disappear was not his concern. Anyway these newcomers didn't buy land from the people who had lived there for millennia, they bought it from their own queen. How could they buy land from people who roamed in small groups and stayed at one waterhole for only a few days? From people who walk around naked, don't wash, don't build houses and in general are incredibly primitive.

Batik design by Emily Kame Kngwarreye

The newcomers weren't primitive, anything but. They could navigate the whole world in their great ships. They could produce tools of iron and use those tools to cut down forests. In their own country they cut down all the forests so they could raise sheep. They kept sheep because in their own country they didn't walk around naked but made themselves clothes from hair stolen from animals. Sheep were perfect for that because they had warm fleece so their owners regularly fleeced them and used the hair for their own garments. Moreover, they could sell the hair so they wanted to keep as many sheep as they could. When they cut down all the forests in their own country they moved to Australia, where they even didn't need to cut forests because in the big part of the country there were no forests, only grass. They bought land from their queen and brought their sheep there.

The newcomers didn't have a custom of body painting, clothing made of animal hair was more important for them. As the Aborigines painted the right designs for the right occasions so the newcomers had various kinds of clothing used on various occasions. They also had dreamings that instructed them what to do in life, although their dreamings said nothing about where to find water (which is little wonder as their country is drenched in rain most of the time and finding water is no problem at all). They also had pictures to illustrate their dreamings, although they didn't create them on the ground but on wooden boards or on canvass stretched on a wooden frame. These pictures were later placed vertically in special buildings made of stone. Those buildings were erected especially for ceremonies connected with dreamings.

Those vertically placed pictures weren't destroyed after the end of the ceremony, they were kept in the same place for a long time, many years. Some of those pictures were very beautiful, they became famous for their beauty and people would come from afar to see them. Sometimes they would travel for many days just to see a particular picture. In time, creators of the most famous pictures became famous themselves and would receive orders to create other pictures, sometimes connected with dreamings and sometimes not. For example, they would be asked to paint portraits of people who sold a lot of animal hair and as a result had a lot of money. When those persons died their family would hang those portraits in their houses to remind of moments spent together. When more and more people lived in cities, some wanted to have portraits of beautiful landscapes of countryside to remind them of beautiful moments spent there.

The world of the white man changed because he was inventing something all the time. Machines to make clothes from animal hair were invented so the clothes could be produced much quicker and so demand for that hair grew. As a result demand for land where those animals could be kept rose, too. A machine that could paint a portrait of a person in a few seconds was also invented, a machine that could paint more accurate portraits that those made by hand. Then some painters started painting in a new, different way. One group of painters started painting landscapes not quite in focus, with visible brush strokes, very different from anything a machine could do. Those painters were controversial, much was written about them in papers, this way they became famous. As they became famous, more and more people wanted to buy their pictures and so prices of those pictures rose. Next generation of painters, seeing that controversy paid off, started painting pictures representing not distorted landscapes but simply nothing, and they called those paintings “abstractions”. If as a result they became controversial and consequently famous, so the price of their pictures rose. As the prices rose, it became fashionable to buy them and in the end on the walls of houses of rich people pictures representing nothing appeared.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

At this point paths of two apparently incompatible cultures met.

The Aboriginal culture also changed, partly as a result of what the newcomers did. When the newcomers bought land from their queen and moved in with their sheep, the Aborigines had to flee. The sheep ate all the grass and the kangaroos, which was staple food for the Aborigines, had nothing to eat and vanished. The government of Her Majesty didn't want to be cruel and was prepared to feed the landless Aborigines, special settlements were built for that purpose. The Government also wanted to civilise these wild people, send the children to school. The first meeting of the two cultures happened on a school yard. I mean the first real meeting, not just watching each other from afar.

The first of those meetings took place in 1971 in a settlement named Papunya a few hundred kilometres west from Alice Springs. The art teacher in the school there, whose name was Geoffrey Bardon, asked the children to paint traditional patterns. A surprising response came from the children's fathers, who said the children cannot paint them but they, the fathers, can. Bardon kept encouraging and the men in Papunya painted patterns used normally for dreaming ceremonies, but this time they painted them in acrylic on canvas. This caused controversy because other Aborigines claimed these pictures revealed secret patterns that women weren't supposed to see. These pictures shouldn't be publicly exhibited. The controversy was completely incomprehensible for white men, for them the paintings looked like abstractions that could be hanged on walls in houses of rich people. However, the controversy meant that papers wrote about it, the painters became famous and prices for their pictures rose. The most famous painters from Papunya, like Clifford Possum or Johnny Warrankula, sold their pictures for tens or even hundreds thousands of dollars.

The second meeting took place in a settlement called Utopia situated a few hundred kilometres north-west from Alice Springs. There the teachers in the school noticed that Aboriginal mothers brought children to school and then waited the whole day on the school yard for the children to come out. Perhaps a program for mums could also be organised? Perhaps they could do something they could sell? If they could, they would be less dependent on government benefits. They could for example make batik designs on T-shirts. A few women took part in such a program with some enthusiasm and created fantastic designs. Later the T-shirts were sold to tourists in Alice Springs.

Rodney Gooch, the manager of the shop in Alice Springs, thought that the designs were good enough to make an exhibition and show it in the cities on the coast. It would be better, though, if they could be made on lengths of silk rather than T-shirts. The project has been discussed, materials given to the participants and in 1988 the exhibition was ready. The designs that appeared there were, of course, dreamings. The exhibition was a success, it was shown not only in Australia, but in America and Europe as well. But this was not the end.

A picture by Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Rodney Gooch wanted to use the momentum. The Papunya painters (whose pictures shouldn't be shown to women) were already well known, thousands of dollars were paid for their pictures. As it happens, in the white man's world batik is not considered art. It is mere craft, even though it is more difficult to produce than a picture painted with acrylic paints. Acrylic painting is considered real art and could be sold for much more even if it represents the same thing. Batik is not a traditional craft of Aborigine women, it was only suggested to them a couple of years earlier. Why not give them acrylics to work with? Next travelling exhibition could be made up of paintings of Utopia women.

The effect of the project was amazing. The trail had been cleared by dads from Papunya so for the organisers it was not a complete surprise, but it must have been for the participants. For a mum who doesn't know what to do with her time when her children are at school to become an internationally famous artist in a short time, must have been a bit of a culture shock.

Owners of art galleries in the cities on the coast started coming to Aborigine settlements and brought canvas and paints with them. The canvas was spread on the floor and the artists were putting their dots in the same way as when they created a sand dreaming picture for a ceremony. When the picture was finished, the gallery owner stretched it an a frame and sold it for thousands to some well off city people. For thousands, because if the fame was international, the price had to be appropriate.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye took part in activities of the batik group from the very beginning. Her batik dreamings appeared on the group exhibition of 1988. She started painting a year later, when Rodney Gooch brought paints to Utopia. She was about 70 years old at the time, although her exact date of birth is not known. From that moment until her death in September 1996 she painted a few thousands pictures. These are pictures covered in dots and strokes, like all the pictures by Aborigine artists. Emily's pictures have something which cannot be defined but which draws one's attention to them like a kind of magic. Soon she became the most famous of all the Aborigine artists. Here are the dates of her breathtaking career:

1988 – the first group exhibition of batik.

1989 – the first group exhibition if acrylic paintings,

1990 – the first solo exhibition in Sydney, followed by many exhibitions both solo and as a part of a group.

1997 (posthumously) exhibition at the Biennale in Venice

History goes in circles, ethnology sometimes as well. In 1970s white enthusiasts gave the Aborigine artists painting materials and the paintings thus created sold well. Later gallery owners looked for Aborigine artists to sell their pictures in the cities. Today those dot paintings are so popular that they are almost perceived as traditional folk art of Aboriginal Australians. Galleries in Alice Springs and in the tourist town at Ayers Rock are full of them. Pictures in the galleries cost thousands but wherever tourists come, some Aborigines from a nearby settlements come as well. They come in their old cars, sit on the ground and sell similar dot pictures for less than a hundred bucks.

How could one miss such an opportunity? Especially as one can then take a selfie with an Aborigine.

A Selfie with an Aborigine

You will find this article, and many others, in my book "ART ETHNO".