Abstract
The Kimberley region of northwest Australia is well known for its extensive Aboriginal rock art. The rock art of the recent past is particularly diverse and includes painting, drawing, scratchwork, pecking, engraving, and beeswax applique. Frequently, contrasting techniques are used to augment or mark existing images, suggesting that this is associated with a complex performative narrative. This evidence, together with the oral testimony of Aboriginal people, indicates that it is the doing of the art and the reiteration of the story it tells, rather than the artwork itself, that is of importance. The performance aspect of the art may be an essential part of ensuring resource renewal and simultaneously a mnemonic that binds the performer through action to the narratives of the creative Beings and the events depicted. Re-marking of art, by re-touching, or otherwise adding to an existing image with new techniques, thus serves as a reminder of the story, both to the performer and the viewer. Today the stories of Wandjinas and other creative Beings continue to be remembered and recounted by reproducing them on paper and other modern mediums.
The authors wish to advise that this chapter contains the names of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Akerman, K. (2009). Wandjinas – A synopsis of knowledge to date. A Kimberley Foundation scoping paper. Unpublished manuscript. Report for the Kimberley Foundation of Australia.
Akerman, K. (2016). Wanjina. Notes on some iconic ancestral beings of the Northern Kimberley. Hesperian Press.
Barker, W., & Roberts, P. (Producers) & Barker, W. (Director). (1993). Milli Milli. [Short film]. Ronin Films.
Blundell, V., & Woolagoodja, D. (2005). Keeping the Wandjinas fresh: Sam Woolagoodja and the enduring power of Lalai. Fremantle Western Australia Arts Centre Press.
Bureau of Meteorology. (2016a). Rainfall percentiles. Retrieved from http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/rainfall-percentiles/index.jsp. Accessed 19 Mar 2020.
Bureau of Meteorology. (2016b). Temperature percentiles. Retrieved from http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/temperature-percentiles/index.jsp. Accessed 19 Mar 2020.
Crawford, I. M. (1968). The art of the Wandjina. Aboriginal cave paintings in Kimberley, Western Australia. Oxford University Press.
Crawford, I. M. (1973). Wandjina paintings. In R. M. Berndt & E. S. Phillips (Eds.), The Australian Aboriginal heritage: An introduction through the arts (pp. 108–117). Ure Smith.
Donaldson, M. (2012a). Kimberley rock art. Volume one: Mitchell Plateau area. Wildrocks Publications.
Donaldson, M. (2012b). Kimberley rock art. Volume two: North Kimberley. Wildrocks Publications.
Donaldson, M. (2013). Kimberley rock art. Volume three: Rivers and ranges. Wildrocks Publications.
Doring, J. (2000). Gwion Gwion Dulwan Mamaa: Secret and sacred pathways of the Ngarinyin Aboriginal people of Australia. Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH.
Elkin, A. P. (1948). Grey’s northern Kimberley cave-paintings re-found. Oceania, 19(1), 1–15.
Fowles, S., & Arterberry, J. (2013). Gesture and performance in Comanche rock art. World Art: Art Makes Society, 3(1), 67–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2013.773937
Frederick, U. K. (1997). Drawing in differences: Changing social contexts of rock art production in Watarrka (Kings Canyon) National Park, Central Australia. Unpublished master’s thesis. The Australian National University, Canberra. Retrieved from https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/150334
Frederick, U. (1999). At the centre of it all: Constructing contact through the rock art of Watarrka National Park, central Australia. Archaeology in Oceania, 34(3), 132–144. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4453.1999.tb00443.x
Frederick, U., & O’Connor, S. (2009). Wandjina, graffiti and heritage: The power and politics of enduring imagery. Humanities Research, XV(2), 153–183. https://doi.org/10.22459/HR.XV.02.2009.10
Gell, A. (1998). Art and agency: An anthropological theory. Oxford University Press.
Hamilakis, Y. (2014). Archaeology and the senses: Human experience, memory and affect. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139024655
Harman, J. (2008). Using decorrelation stretch to enhance rock art images. Online Paper: http://www.dstretch.com/AlgorithmDescription.html
Hiatt, L. R., & Jones, R. (1988). Aboriginal conceptions of the workings of nature. In R. W. Home (Ed.), Australian science in the making (pp. 1–22). Cambridge University Press.
Lommel, A. (1952). Die Unambal. Ein Stamm in Nordwest- Australien. Hamburgisches Museum für Völkerkunde.
Love, J. R. B. (2009). Kimberley people: Stone age bushmen of today (D. W. Welch, Comp.). Virginia, Northern Territory: David M. Welch. (Original work published 1936 with different title).
Mangolamara, S., Karadada, L., Oobagooma, J., Woolagoodja, D., & Karadada, J. (2018). Nyara pari kala niragu (Gaambera), gadawara ngyaran-gada (Wunambal), inganinja gubadjoongana (Woddordda) We are coming to see you (K. Doohan, Comp). Dambimangari Aboriginal Corporation and Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation.
Marshall, M. (2020). Rock art conservation and management: 21st Century perspectives in northern Australia. Unpublished doctoral thesis. The Australian National University, Canberra.
Marshall, M., & Bunuba Dawangarri Aboriginal Corporation. (2020). Bunuba cultural caretakers project. Unpublished report to WA Department of Planning Lands and Heritage. Broome: University of Notre Dame Australia.
Merlan, F. (1989). The interpretive framework of Wardaman rock art: A preliminary report. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2, 14–24.
Morphy, H. (1991). Ancestral connections: Art and an Aboriginal system of knowledge. University of Chicago Press.
Morphy, H. (1999). Encoding the Dreaming – A theoretical framework for the analysis of representational processes in Australian Aboriginal art. Australian Archaeology, 49(1), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1999.11681648
Morwood, M. J., Walsh, G. L., & Watchman, A. L. (2010). AMS radiocarbon ages for beeswax and charcoal pigments in north Kimberley rock art. Rock Art Research, 27(1), 3–8.
Mowaljarlai, D., & Malnic, J. (2001). Yorro Yorro: Everything standing up alive. Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation.
Mowaljarlai, D., Vinnicombe, P., Ward, G. K., & Chippindale, C. (1988). Repainting of images on rock in Australia and the maintenance of Aboriginal culture. Antiquity, 62(237), 690–696. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00075086
O’Connor, S., Balme, J., Fyfe, J., Oscar, J., Oscar, M., Davis, J., Malo, H., Nuggett, R., & Surprise, D. (2013). Marking resistance? Change and continuity in the recent rock art of the southern Kimberley, Australia. Antiquity, 87(336), 539–554. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00049115
O’Connor, S., Barham, A., & Woolagoodja, D. (2008). Painting and repainting in the west Kimberley. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 1, 22–38.
Ouzman, S. (2001). Seeing is deceiving: rock art and the non-visual. World Archaeology, 33(2), 237–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240120079271
Playford, P. E. (2007). Aboriginal rock art in the limestone ranges of the west Kimberley. In M. J. Donaldson & K. F. Kenneally (Eds.), Rock art of the Kimberley (pp. 127–158). Kimberley Society.
Porr, M. (2018). Country and relational ontology in the Kimberley, northwest Australia: Implications for understanding and representing archaeological evidence. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 28(3), 395–409. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095977431800018
Rosenfeld, A. (1999). Rock art and rock markings. Australian Archaeology, 49, 28–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1999.11681653
Ryan, J., & Akerman, K. (Eds.). (1993). Images of power: Aboriginal art of the Kimberley. National Gallery of Victoria.
Smith, M. A., & Rosenfeld, A. (1992). Archaeological sites in Watarrka National Park: The northern sector of the Plateau. Unpublished manuscript. Report to the Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory on fieldwork in 1991.
Taçon, P. S. C. (2008). Doodles, rock art and arousal: An alternative to the entoptic explanation. Rock Art Research, 25(1), 52–53.
Tonkinson, R., & Tonkinson, M. (2001). ‘Knowing’ and ‘being’ in place in the Western Desert. In A. Anderson, I. Lilley, & S. O’Connor (Eds.), Histories of old ages: Essays in honour of Rhys Jones (pp. 133–139). Pandanus Books.
Utemara, D., & Vinnicombe, P. (1992). North-western Kimberley belief systems. In M. J. Morwood & D. R. Hobbs (Eds.), Rock art and ethnography. Proceedings of the Ethnography Symposium (H), Australian Rock Art Research Association Congress, Darwin 1988 (Occasional AURA Publication 5) (pp. 25–26). Archaeological Publications.
Veth, P., Myers, C., Heaney, P., & Ouzman, S. (2018). Plants before farming: The deep history of plant-use and representation in the rock art of Australia’s Kimberley region. Quaternary International, 489, 26–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.08.036
Vigilante, T., Toohey, J., Gorring, A., Blundell, V., Saunders, T., Mangolamara, S., Oobagooma, K. G. J., Waina, M., Morgan, K., & Doohan, K. (2013). Island country: Aboriginal connections, values and knowledge of the Western Australian Kimberley islands in the context of an island biological survey. Records of the Western Australian Museum Supplement, 81, 145–182. https://doi.org/10.18195/issn.0313-122x.81.2013.14-182
Welch, D. (2007). Bradshaw art of the Kimberley. In M. Donaldson & K. F. Kenneally (Eds.), Rock art of the Kimberley (pp. 81–100). Kimberley Society.
Woolagoodja, D. (2007). Rock art as inspiration for contemporary Aboriginal painting. In M. Donaldson & K. F. Kenneally (Eds.), Rock art of the Kimberley (pp. 25–38). Kimberley Society.
Acknowledgements
SO and JB with Bunuba and Gooniyandi Traditional Owners including the authors JO, MO and JS carried out fieldwork for this paper between 2011 and 2015 with funding from an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant LP100200415 with contributions from Kimberley Foundation Australia and the Department of Sustainability, Water, Populations and Communities. UF was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (DE170101351) during the development of this chapter. MM’s fieldwork working with authors RD and KD from the Wandjina Wunggurr Wilinggin Native Title groups for her PhD was assisted by funding from an Australian Postgraduate Award as a candidate within the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University. Her fieldwork with authors SM and RW from the Bunuba Native Title Group was assisted with funding from the WA Department of Planning Lands and Heritage. Mary Aitken and the Galamanda community are thanked for their support of the project. We would also like to thank Kim Akerman and Jane Fyfe for permission to use their photographs.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
O’Connor, S. et al. (2022). Memory and Performance: The Role of Rock Art in the Kimberley, Western Australia. In: Zubieta, L.F. (eds) Rock Art and Memory in the Transmission of Cultural Knowledge. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96942-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96942-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-96941-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-96942-4
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)