Although a spiritual Evil Being is feared more than a Good is revered, the existence of the latter is faithfully admitted, so far as our personal experience goes, by both the central and northern Australian tribes; and such a belief has, moreover, been found by reliable observers among the now practically extinct tribes of southern Australia. According to the late Dr. A. W. Howitt, the natives of Victoria and New South Wales used to speak with bated breath of a great Supernatural Being which once inhabited the earth and now lives in the sky. The belief is original and not in any way due to missionary influence. The oldest myths, such as only the untaught and unsophisticated grey-beards can tell, contain references to the existence on earth in ancestral times of convivial beings, kindly disposed towards the people, who eventually found their way to the sky by way of towering trees, since destroyed by fire. The Supreme Being is called by the Arunndta “Altjerra,” by the Fowler’s Bay natives “Nyege,” and by the Aluridja “Tukura.” The benign Altjerra roams about the sky (“Alkurra”) and keeps a watchful eye upon the doings of the tribes beneath him. The natives are so convinced of his ubiquitous presence that the Arunndta, for instance, have a favourite exclamation when committing themselves on oath in the form of “Altjerr’m arrum,” meaning something like “Altjerra hear it”; that is, an appeal is made to Altjerra as witness to what is said, much after the way a school child endeavours to convince one of the truth of an utterance by exclaiming: “God strike me dead if I tell a lie.”
The etymology of the Supreme Being’s name is often really poetical. The Sunday Islanders, for instance, recognize such a Super-Being whom they call “Kaleya Ngungu.” This name embodies in it the ideas of the past as well as of the future. “Kaleya” in that locality means the “finish” of anything, or even “Good-bye,” while “ngung” stands for that which is to come or is to be. The implication is that this Great Being has emerged from the obscurity of bygone days and continues to live into the still greater uncertainty of times ahead. From a religious point of view, then, we note here a recognition of a spiritual quantity whose influence has been exercised uninterruptedly from the earliest past, and will be continued again, and forever.
So, too, the name of the Aluridja God, “Tukura,” is composed of two words expressing the ideas of genesis and eternity. In the same sense, the Arunndta regard their demi-gods, or “Altjerrajarra namitjimma,” as being the creators of life, although as such they themselves continue to live uninterruptedly and ad infinitum. And we have already noted that they roam for ever in the great celestial “walk-about,” which is known as “Altjerringa” by the Arunndta, “Talleri” by the Kukata, and “Wirrewarra” by the Narrinyerri.
To this consummate home all spirits of the dead find their way and there join their spirit ancestors. In fact, so many have gone to the happy ground that most tribes look upon the stars as the camp-fires and fire-sticks of their departed relatives and friends. It is on this account that many stars have been named after notable tribesmen, the natives imagining that they can discover the new addition in the firmament after the deceased has been interred. Whenever a shooting star is observed travelling towards the earth, it is taken to be the spirit of one returning temporarily to its terrestrial haunts.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ABORIGINAL ART
Psycho-analysis of the conception of art—Oldest records appear as rock carvings—Descriptions from several localities—Evidences of great antiquity—Tree carvings—Carved grave-posts of Melville Islanders—Carvings on wooden weapons—Engraved boabab nuts—Carved pearl-shell—Bone not carved to any considerable extent—Charcoal, kaolin, and ochre drawings—Cave drawings—Ochre mines and legends—Barter with ochre—Preparation and application of pigment—Hand and foot marks—General picture of cave drawings—Ochre drawings on sheets of bark—Ochre body decorations—Coloured down and ground designs—Study of designs in detail—Subsidiary sketches of determinative character—All features of model shown on one plane—Keen observers—Natural features of rock surface embodied in design—Celestial phenomena artistically explained—The emu—Perspective—Action—Animation—Composition—“Totem” designs—Sacred designs—Remarkable drawings from the Glenelg River—Conventional drawings and patterns—Tracks of man, animal, and bird—Images in the sky—Fish—Flying fox—Fleeing kangaroo—A fight—Time symbols—Circle-within-circle and U-within-U designs—Kangaroo, caterpillar, and native pear-tjuringa drawings—Anthropomorphous designs.
No truer insight could be obtained into the mind of a primitive man than by means of a psycho-analysis of his artistic productions and predilections. Like most other peoples, past or present, the Australian aboriginal has developed his talents to an astonishing degree. Just as is true of his dances and musical performances, the real value of a production can only be appreciated by one who can throw himself, heart and soul, into the responsive, reciprocative, and assimilative mood and atmosphere the artist endeavours to create. The psychological factor is the more important; an aboriginal’s design may be crude, but his imagination is, nevertheless, wonderful; we see the line, but he sees the life; we behold the image, he the form. In the absence of such a psychological reciprocation, however, the effect and quality of any artistic production may fall flat. Indeed, we ask, what is contained in a mere line? With due deference to the Euclidian definition, a line, from a primitive point of view, might represent almost anything, provided the necessary imagination is there; and it is just this imagination which is particularly cultivated by the primitive man. The question arises: “Who is the better artist: the man who can satisfy himself or the man who can satisfy others?” The former is unquestionably the more primitive idea of satisfaction. Simplicity of design is by no means indicative of a deficiency in talent, provided the inventor has evolved the necessary imagination which permits him to behold in a design before him the reality of the original. This instinct is common to all mankind; we have only to observe our own children to appreciate the excellence of their creative talent and imagination when they are at play among themselves. Modern adult man is too realistic, perhaps too unnatural; he cries for something tangible, something concrete to appease his tastes. Just as one often sees youngsters, European as well as aboriginal, playing at their favourite game of “father and mother,” assuming certain inanimate objects, like sticks, to represent their children, so the aboriginal artist’s imaginative mind can actually see the real living picture contained in the crude diagram before him; he conveys his thoughts to his fellows by means of a lengthy verbal explanation, and, when they have caught the idea, they can wax as enthusiastic over the thing as the artist himself. This sentiment we have sacrificed to a certain extent. It is difficult to say exactly who is an artist and who is not. By nature we are all artists, and most of us can satisfy our individual needs in a more or less conventional way. But to pose as a modern artist, it is required of us to be able to take the inspiration from Nature and reproduce it in such a way that others are able to grasp the significance or beauty of the design without more explanation than a mere title. Yet the conception of “art” is a variable and relative measure, and we know well there have been different tendencies and schools, some of which are so highly specialized that the untrained mind cannot grasp, or even admire, the quality of the reproduction, because it cannot see with the same eye as the artist specialist. Here, then, we have a reversion to the primitive instinct, combined with all the perfections and skill which culture and training have evolved during the long space of time lying between a primitive foundation and the high standard of modern excellence.
The oldest records of primitive art in Australia are preserved in the form of carvings upon rock surfaces, akin to those found in parts of Europe, South Africa, and Egypt. The technique of these carvings is twofold. At Port Jackson, and elsewhere along the coast of New South Wales, and to a small extent at Port Hedland in Western Australia, a great variety of representations of fish, animals, and men have been cut and scraped in outline into the surface of the rock; in the Mann Ranges also, certain nondescript designs were found lightly scratched upon the surface of some diorite outcrops with a fragment of rock. At different points in the northern Flinders Ranges, at Yunta, at Eureowie in New South Wales, on the Flinders and Burnett Rivers in Queensland, and also at Port Hedland in Western Australia, an extensive series of designs occurs which has been chipped into the rocks with the aid of pointed stone chisels. The carvings at Port Hedland and those in the Flinders Ranges are very old indeed. In fact, they are so old that none of the tribes now living remember anything about them, and refer to them as being the handicraft of the Evil Spirit.
The most striking feature about the Port Jackson carvings is the large size of individual designs, some of the fish measuring nearly thirty feet in length, and some of the kangaroo over ten feet in height. That the carvings have been made for generations past is evident from the fact that in places a practically obliterated design has been covered, and re-covered, with new designs.