THE ART OF CENTRAL
AUSTRALIA
THE MEANING OF SYMBOLS
The use of a fixed set of symbols would seem to make interpretation
easy, but only those directly involved in creating a ground painting
can give its meaning with absolute authority. Related mythological
sites, on the travelling route of some Dreamtime creative animal,
might well have very fine shades of variation. Again, bird tracks
are very similar, as are several other animal tracks. Further, some
symbols have a multiplicity of meanings; a series of concentric
circles can mean a camp-fire, home, cave, rock-hole, clay-pan, spring,
tree or mountain - the list is not exhaustive; a sinuous line can
mean a snake, running water, lightning, a hair-string girdle, native
bee honey storage, or a bark rope.
LEVELS OF INTERPRETATION
A single design element can in itself have several interpratation
levels. Thus-to take a hypothetical example-a circle might be described,
in the secular context, as a particular geographical region; become
a specific water-hole to a first-stage initiate; be a bundle of
hair-string carried by a mythological hunter who visited the water-hole
to a second stage ritual man; be extented to mean an object made
from the hair-string to a still more knowledgeable man; and have
its meaning extended even futher to the complete ritual man. Each
revelation is made only after the older custodians are certain that
the previous step, with its associated songs and ceremonial detail,
is fully comprehened by the younger men.
FROM THE GROUND TO CANVAS
Even if an outsider may be privilege enough to be shown a ground
painting, it is highly doubtful that any person other than a man
of central Australian Aboriginal origin will ever be permitted to
understand its ultimate meaning. This, however does not detract
from the beauty of the ground mosaics and the artistic merit of
the adapted paintings. Nor does it make secular interpretations
any less interesting.
To see the geographical locations of mythological events is to gain
an important aid to understanding of ground painting and associated
ceremonies. It may well be use to see them in different weather
conditions, fully appreciate the mythological associations. Thus,
Watulpunyu, a Walpiri Water Dreaming site in the depiction of which
there are several circle (representing rock holes) and sinuous lines
(representing both mythological lighting and running water), leaps
into life when you visit it.
MYTHOLOGICAL BECOMES REALITY
A spring-flow of water distant from the main rock-holes after heavy
rains illustrate the mythology, for in the dreamtime the custodians
were unable to stop the storm-water flow. The tiered series of rock-hole
, and correct approach protocol, give further initial appreciation.
As the years pass and you learn the meanings of natural markings
and objects, rock engravings and paintings, and are introduced to
linking site, you develop even greater insight. The mythological
becomes reality; the reality becomes mythology.
THE CREATORS
The creators of the beautiful ground mosiac do not consider them
in artistic isolation. They see them as derived from, and sauctioned
by, the mythological ancestors; as referring to specific geographic
sites and linked with the useful plants and animals of the Aboriginal
environment.
The mosaic have complementary artistic expression in cave paintings,
rock engravings, incised ceremonial objects and other art forms;
act as social controls upon young and old; help determine social
roles; and give excitement and pleasure to artists and actors in
their use.
They are tangible representations of
legendary events, relating to mythological beings who are seen as
both distantly ancestral and yet also ever-present in quiescent,
invisible form. At the same time they relate to the Aboriginal ancestral
past, to the living present, and to the certainty of the future
continuation of the natural law.
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