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