A single wavy line, or a number of parallel wavy lines, represents a snake or a snake track ([Fig. 41]).
The human footprint is either correctly shown in detail, or is reduced to a short, straight line at one end of which five (occasionally only three or four) dots are drawn in a sloping line to indicate the toes. When walking is to be implied, these footprints are either shown one behind the other in a straight line, at equal distances apart, or they stand alternately right and left by an imaginary central line. The common way of showing the last-named system conventionally is to connect the alternate footprints, whether they be actually shown or not, by a zig-zag line ([Fig. 42]).
In all cases mentioned above, the track may stand equally well for the object itself.
Fig. 49. Symbolic pictograph of kangaroo Tjuringa, Arunndta tribe.
It is a common thing to see two or more of the above systems combined, after the style of the figures shown on [page 344].
The interpretation of the first of these messages would be: “A man is tracking a rabbit.”
The second ([Fig. 44]) would read: “A hunter is pursuing an emu and is accompanied by his dog.”
In the same way as the natives of the Northern Territory have applied their artistic talents to deciphering images of earthly objects amongst the celestial bodies, and point with pride upon the great emu, “Dangorra,” which nightly watches over them, so the Wongapitcha and Aluridja of central Australia recognize in the constellation we know as the Southern Cross the shape of an eagle-hawk’s claw, and call it in consequence “Warridajinna”; the Milky Way they consider to be a creek bed and assign to it the name “Karru”; the northern Kimberleys tribes believe the Milky Way to be the track of a great carpet snake they refer to as “Womma.”
In the representation of a fish, the scales often take the form of a cross-hatched pattern; but there are many cases in which the form of the fish is not shown at all, yet the cross-hatched pattern remains and is nevertheless indicative of the fish.