Fig. 3a.—Aboriginal Rock Paintings (Australia)
Mr. R. H. Mathews, who has made an extensive survey of the rock-paintings and carvings, says that one type serves for another, so lacking are all in variety; "the stencilled and impressed hands, the outlines of men and animals rudely depicted in various colours, appearing to be universally distributed over the continent." He adds that "although it will be better not to attempt to suggest meanings to the groups of native drawings until a very much larger amount of information has been brought together ... still when we know that drawings such as these by uncivilised nations of all times, in various parts of the world, have ultimately been found to be full of meaning, it is not unreasonable for us to expect that the strange figures painted and carved upon rocks all over Australia will some day be interpreted. Perhaps some of these pictures are ideographic expressions of events in the history of the tribe; certain groupings of figures may portray some legend; many of the animals probably represent totems; and it is likely that a number of them were executed for pastime and amusement." (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxv. 2, p. 153.) In their recently published "Native Tribes of Central Australia," Messrs. Spencer and Gillen divide the rock-paintings into two series, those of ordinary type, and those which, found in places strictly taboo to women and children and uninitiated men, are associated with totems, i.e. with the natural object, whether living or non-living, from which the tribe believes itself to be descended. These totemistic figures, called Churinga (a general native term for sacred objects) Ilkinia, are frequently in the form of spiral and concentric circles, others being portraits of the totems themselves, as low in type as the centipede or witchetty grub.
Fig. 4.—Bushman Paintings
Fig. 4a.—Bushman Paintings
The faces of sandstone caverns in South Africa are often covered with paintings which are the handiwork of Bushmen (Figs. 4, 4a, and 4b). With a skill showing some advance on the art of the Australian aborigines there is depicted, usually in black or brownish-red colour, the hunting and other exploits which make up life among a people who represent the aboriginal races of the southern portion of the continent. Some of the drawings border on caricature; others, in the words of an observer, "suggest actual portraiture. The ornamentation of the head-dresses, feathers, beads tassels, &c., seemed to have claimed much care, while the higher class of drawings indicate correct appreciation of the actual appearance of objects, and perspective and foreshortening are well rendered." (Mark Hutchinson, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiv. p. 464.)
