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".