The old masters of Arnhem Land

Landscape of Arnhem Land

     Arnhem Land, the Top End of Australia, is an unwelcoming country. It is a country where for three months of the year it rains constantly, rivers burst their banks and carry away cars and when the drivers try to get out of the vehicles, they see grinning crocodiles waiting for a snack. It is a country where for nine months it doesn't rain at all and the once mighty rivers become chains of billabongs in whose stagnant waters grinning crocs wait for tourists who come too close to the shore. It is a country where above those billabongs raise rocks of incredible shapes, rocks that are perhaps pretty but one cannot even graze cattle properly between them. It is a country which the white owners of Australia consider hostile and useless. Or rather it has been decided that it is useless for white settlers but could be used as a reservation for Aborigines.

     The Aborigines of course lived there already and and had some input in its reputation as a hostile country. In the beginning of the 20th century it was a country where war never ended. It was a war fought with spears which - when thrown with a spear-thrower - could pierce a man from more than a hundred yards. Although sometimes a war between two particular groups ended and there was a peace ceremony - a most peculiar one, as many of their customs. As a sign of peace the chiefs exchanged their wives and this exchange was consumed on the spot, with everybody present. Nobody needed to take their clothes off for this as everybody walked around naked anyway. However, neither walking around naked nor this peculiar sign of peace meant that the people were promiscuous. Everybody knew who was whose spouse and one could be speared for running away with somebody else's wife. The runaway wife would be treated more leniently, only her tigh would by run through with a spear. She wouldn't complain, on the contrary, if she was denied the punishment, she might think that she wasn't attractive enough. Funeral rites were no less astonishing. If a respected clan member died, his body was roasted and eaten by the family, afterwards his bones were placed in a coffin made of a hollow log. This coffin was afterwards carried for years everywhere wherever the family moved, which was constant, as the Arnhem Land inhabitants were nomads.

Billabong

     Who would want to live in a country like this? Perhaps some adventure-seekers, like Paddy Cahill, who in 1906 set up a cattle station in Oenpelli, on the western edge of Arhem Land. He had problems of finding white workers and employed Aborigines as stockmen. Paddy Cahill knew Aborigines well, he had lived among them before and even learned a few of their languages.

     Another kind of people attracted to places like Arnhem Land were anthropologists. For them meeting people who had such strange customs was worthy of all the inconveniences of visiting such an inhospitable country. In a way the anthropologists were unusual among the white people as they saw these naked Aborigines not as wild people without culture but as people with a very different culture. But how to talk to them? Perhaps with help of an uneducated farmer like Paddy Cahill, who can speak some of the native languages?

     Baldwin Spencer, an anthropologist and a professor of the newly created University of Melbourne, did exactly that. He arrived at Oenpelli in 1912. He noted that the Kakadu people of Arnhem Land lead a nomadic life during the dry season but in the wet they stayed put in one place, built shelters from eucalyptus bark and painted strange creatures on their walls. He noted also that these figures painted on bark are quite similar to paintings in ancient caves in the area. He wanted such pictures in his museum in Melbourne and asked if somebody could paint them for him on a specially prepared piece of bark. Thus the precedent was created: bark paintings were made for people from an alien civilisation. Later a few more expeditions visited this mysterious land and collected bark paintings. The biggest one was made in 1948, after a war that was short, only a few years, but the weapons used were not spears but flying machines and bombs, some even atomic bombs. After that war ended the white owners of Australia decided they have to learn something about the country they had fought such a fierce war for. An expedition was sent there, led by C. P. Mountford. This expedition acquired the biggest collection of bark paintings before the market for Aboriginal art appeared. Thanks to these collections we can now observe how this art evolved.

Mother goddes in Arnhem Land rock painting

     The anthropologists noted that the bark huts and also the portable coffins were painted but it was by no means insignificant what was painted on them or who painted it. Only a member of a particular clan could paint particular patterns, the patterns were owned by a clan and nobody else was allowed to paint them. It was the same with body painting. One had to be adequately painted for a particular occasion in exactly the same way as in other civilisations people have to be dressed in a particular manner depending on where that are or what they do. In exactly the same way as in other civilisations somebody's social class can be guessed after the clothing that person wears, in Arnhem Land the Aboriginal people know who is from which clan seeing their body painting. The coffins and dwellings also have to be painted in a correct manner.

     But this is not all. The Arnhem Land Aborigines created bark paintings to illustrate myths (in Australia usually called "dreamings"). Those paintings were used for instruction during initiation ceremonies for boys. Each of those paintings had more than one meaning, the outer meaning was explained to boys and the inner meaning only to mature men. After the ceremony those paintings were destroyed (unless there was an anthropological expedition in the vicinity). Some of these pictures showed mythical progenitors with extra large genitals. One may think it logical that the mother goddess is pictured with her labia bigger than anything else but strangely for some of the white visitors this was totally unacceptable. Not just the labia but the very fact that somebody believed in a mother goddess.

Bark painting collected by Mountford

     This was because not only adventurers and anthropologists travelled to Arnhem Land. This country, where people wandered naked having never heard about Jesus, was a fertile land for missionaries. In 1925 the Anglican Church sent missionaries to Oenpelli, ten years later the Methodist church set up a mission on the east coast in a place called Yirrkala. Soon these two centres became the main points of contact between civilisations.

      For the first missionaries the initial challenge was the fashion because the natives favoured their birthday suit. A brave missionary can go to a wild place and build a church but could he let naked people enter it? Of course not! However, fashion tends to change everywhere, even in Arnhem Land. Wilbur Chaseling, the missionary in Yirrkala, wrote that in 1930ties there was a fashion among the young people for wearing clothes. Of course a naked man from the bush cannot just go to a shop in Darwin and buy a suit. The clothes worn by the Blackfellas of Arnhem Land in the 1930ties were acquired in other ways and varied immensely. Reactions to this fashion varied also, depending on the point of view. Tribal elders thought the old morals were breaking down because youngsters tried to hide something whereas a missionary was astonished to see a muscular warrior dressed in a Japanese ladies pyjama. It was only the youngsters, though, that were following this new fashion, the older people claimed that an honest person has nothing to hide and preferred their birthday suits.

     The fashion nevertheless appeared and to follow it one needed some purchasing power. How to acquire this power, though? Maybe selling bark pictures to anthropologists? The anthropologists are a very restricted market, their expeditions are not every day occurrences. The idea was, however, picked up by missionaries, they bought the paintings from their potential congregations and sold them in the cities on the coast. But how to pay the artists for their work? Some missionaries decided to pay depending on time needed to create a painting and how elaborate it was. If the buyer wants more elaborate pictures, then the artists will of course comply. Modern critics note the number of tiny strokes that was dramatically increased in Arnhem Land pictures around this time. Animals painted with just a few strokes on paintings collected by Spencer and Mountford from 1950ties on are covered in a net of minute strokes.

Modern mythical figure

     There was also another influence by the missionaries: the disappearance of the enlarged genitals. In the old days the labia of a mythical mother of a clan were painted bigger than anything else in the picture because they were holy. For a Christian missionary no labia can ever be holy. Anyway, how can one hang a picture with extra big labia in an art gallery? It would be difficult to find a buyer for such a picture therefore the mythical mother cannot have extra-large labia. In fact it would be best if she could wear knickers. Equally, an artist who claims he has nothing to hide and therefore walks around naked cannot be taken to an opening of an exhibition in Sydney. However, the trends in fashion among the inhabitant of Arnhem Land helped, the old morals were forgotten and the Blackfellas started wearing clothes.

     To be true, this particular change of fashion might have been a little forced. The anthropologists were an exception, most of the white owners of Australia thought that on the other side of the civilisational barrier is not another civilisation but no civilisation at all. Walking around naked was an obvious sign of a complete lack of civilisation. What was more, according to Australian law walking around naked in public places was illegal. Not sending children to schools was also illegal so schools were organised for the Blackfella kids. In the first half of the 20th century the missionaries ran those schools so the recent nomads congregated around missions like Oenpelli and Yirrkala.

     There was one more kind of Whitefellas who wanted to go to Arnhem Land: the miners. The land may be unwelcome for farmers but there can always be something worth digging. Some areas of Arnhem Land were considered haunted by Aborigines, entering there was a taboo and spirits would kill anybody who broke this taboo. No such taboos for white miners, however. In 1950ties uranium was found in those haunted places and mining companies were given government license to dig it. It was the time when the British needed uranium to build their atomic bombs.

     Having been to schools the Aborigines understood the world of the white people. They understood what courts were for. Perhaps the courts could be used to prove that the owners of Arnhem Land are its original inhabitants. For the clans the proof of ownership (always of clans, never of individuals) were ancient tales retold with the aid of bark paintings. Other clans of Arnhem Land respected this ancient law but would the courts of white owners of Australia respect this? In 1963 the clans around Yirrkala mission decided to check it. They sent to the Australian Parliament in Canberra a petition protesting against mining activity on clan lands. The government gave companies the licence but nobody asked the clans who owned that land. The petition, known as The Yirrkala Bark petition, was written in English but around the English text the history proving the clan ownership was painted on bark. In this case the ruling was against the Aborigines but the medial noise around it caused more friendly decisions later.

     Australian law could not accept a claim that a clan owned some land from times immemorial because the law of the white owners of Australia was based on constatation that nobody owned any land there when the first white people came. There were some nomadic hunters there but they walked around naked so it was obvious that they could not own land. They didn't have Australian citizenship anyway. They were considered too primitive to understand what "citizenship" meant and were considered "wards" of the state. They had to be taught how to wear clothes. But 1960ties was the time of revolutionary changes. In Australia there was a referendum among the white owners of the country whether the Aborigines can be given citizenship and as a result they are now citizens of their own country.

     The revolutionary changes were felt not only in Australia. The first half of the 20th century was the time of cubism, expressionism, abstractionism and other avant-garde artistic movements. For the cubists art of exotic peoples was not just worthy of note, it was an example to follow. It is well known that the cubists followed African sculpture but there is also an anecdote that Picasso himself, seeing some pictures of the Arnhem Land bark painter named Yirawala, said that he himself would like to paint like this. If Picasso himself says things like this, then it must be proper art, not just specimens for museum of anthropology. Yirawala paintings appeared in art galleries and museums and he himself even received the Order of the British Empire.

Painting of Yirawala

     It is interesting how different things interest people from different civilisations. For the inhabitants of Arnhem Land it is important whose bones are in a coffin painted in a certain pattern or who lives in a hut thus decorated. For the new arrivals, members of a civilisation that developed overseas, such things were not important. They wanted to know the name of a person who painted a coffin or a hut, or a stylised animal on a piece of bark especially cut for the purpose. To be more precise - as long as the bark painting was treated as an object in a museum of anthropology, nobody was really interested in the name of the artist. The anthropological specimens were created by "a people". But if the same specimen was hanged in an art gallery, then it was a different matter, then the name of the artist had to be known. Actually it shouldn't be just a name, it had to be a first name and a surname. If an artist doesn't have both, then either of the two had to be added. This was the case of Yirawala, who had only one name, but in some catalogues appeared as "Billy Yirawala". He himself protested but the creators of the catalogues decided that one name is not enough. It would be as if he appeared naked at an exhibition in Sydney.

     Yirawala is the best known artist from Arnhem Land. He had exhibitions in the cities on the coast and even in Europe. His paintings were treated like works of art, like those of Picasso. For the white public this may sound like an honour but Yirawala himself protested saying that his paintings are really religious in nature. They are in his view comparable to the Bible, a compendium of spiritual knowledge of Kuwinjku people. He said that missionaries came to tell the Blackfellas what they believe, so he - a Blackfella - wanted to teach the white people what the Kuwinjku believe. He said that each of his pictures had several levels of meaning, the deepest meanings would only be told to those initiated. He sang sacred songs when he painted in the same way as the icon painter prays when painting a holy image. Yirawala's paintings could be compared to icons of the Orthodox Church, both are supposed to lead the viewer towards the unseen world. Just like the icons, in the modern world Yirawala's paintings became just goods to buy and sell. However expensive they might be, for a white buyer they are just this, nothing else.

     Yirawala is considered the main painter of the so-called "school of Oenpelli". Modern critics recognise two clearly recognisable schools of Arnhem Land painting, the "school of Oenpelli" in the west and the "school of Yirrkala" in the east. Painters from Oenpelli paint their figures on a background of one colour. Painted animals are often shown with their inner organs, like intestines or bones, clearly visible. Such x-ray paintings of animals are often seen in rock paintings which can be found in the western part of Arnhem Land. Bark painting from Oenpelli area are considered a direct continuation of rock painting. There is one significant difference, however: the animals painted of bark are filled with intricate network of lines called rarrk.

Painting of the Yirrkala school

     The paintings of the Yirrkala school may look superficially similar but stylistically they are very different. They are also covered with an intricate network of tiny strokes in four colours of ochre, but in Yirrkala paintings these strokes form a pattern covering the background whereas the figures appear on that background painted in one colour, usually black. The patterns are property of particular clans and only the clan members may paint them, so seeing a picture one can tell to which clan the artist belonged. Often a painting is an illustration of a dreaming in several scenes in neighbouring squares, comic-like. An interesting process can be observed here: in the 1940ties some anthropologists collected such illustrations of dreamings made on paper with pencils of all colours, blue, green and others. Having access to new technology the artists used new possibilities. The art market, however, did not like this sort of development, only the "authentic" pictures made on bark with the four colours of ochre were accepted.

     From the 1950ties the individual artists are known. Probably the best known painters of Yirrkala school are the members of the Marika family: Malawan, his younger brother Mathman, Malawan's son Wantjuk as well as their friend Narritjin. Apart from creating individual works they are known for paintings they made together as a team. The famous Yirrkala petition to the Parliament was such team creation. Another famous picture created by this team were two panels for Yirrkala church. They were painted in 1963 and illustrated dreamings of Yolngu people living in the area. They were created at a time when the resident pastor was sympathetic to the Aboriginal culture and placed the panels in the church. A pastor who came later decided that they are illustrations of pagan myths and removed them from the church. At the time it was a well known case and possibly these panels could be the best known picture of Yirrkala school if not for the fact that they are now exhibited in a special place in Yirrkala and to see them one has to travel there. And to be sure, this is not a simple matter.

     This is because Arnhem Land is still a wild country. The inhabitants nowadays are fully dressed and send their children to school but they still prefer to live in small distant outstations where there are no roads. There are only a few dirt tracks in the whole of Arnhem Land and no tarmac roads at all. Perhaps the easiest place to reach is Oenpelli, which is only 16 kilometres from Ubirr, where tourists drive on tarmac to see the famous rock paintings. There is a dirt track from Ubirr to Oenpelli, but one has to cross croc infested East Alligator River. There is a concrete sealed ford there but the current is sometimes quite rapid and takes cars with it. I know this because I stood there and decided not to cross.

Road to Oenpelli

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