Rock paintings in the Upper Hunter: Introduction

Rock Paintings

The term rock painting is used to describe Aboriginal art were materials have been applied to a rock surface to make a design or picture. These may be elaborate, multi layered and profuse or more simple, like the western concept of a drawing.

Paintings and drawings on rock surfaces are found across Australia.

Usually in New South Wales they are found on the walls of rock shelters or near the mouths of caves. In the Upper Hunter Valley most painting sites are sandstone overhangs.

Painting on rock surfaces requires a suitable stable type of rock. The paints were made from pigments (colours) derived from many naturally occurring substances, such as ochre (red and yellow), gypsum (white and cream) and charcoal (black). These materials were either found locally or traded from elsewhere.

The pigments were usually ground and mixed with a base (water, blood or sap) to make a paste. The paint was then applied using brushes of chewed twigs or with the fingers and hand or blowing from the mouth. In some examples the pigments have been applied dry and direct by rubbing or drawing onto the rock.

Hands on Rock is a typical example of the stencil style of rock painting were by the image is created by blowing wet paint from the mouth either directly or through a tube over and around an object held against the rock face. Most often, like with Hands on Rock, the human hand although the technique was also used to depict many other things such as animal feet (also at Hands on Rock) and skins, boomerangs, axes, woomeras, pipes, baskets and shields.

Paintings can also depict ceremonies and corroborees, seemingly abstract designs such as grid patterns and tally marks, animals and humans. The styles and techniques used vary across the state and different regions often have identifiable art styles. Several different styles are noted in and around the Upper Hunter Valley as the borders of several different nations and groups occurred here following the natural borders of the geography.

Determining the age of the paintings is very difficult. Dating the archeological evidence in the floor deposits of some caves (flakes of ochre) has revealed paintings in New South Wales to be over 13,000 years old. Most paintings however would be unlikely to have survived this long and the majority of sites would be less than 5,000 years old.

The importance of painting and other art sites cannot be underestimated. Rock art (engravings and paintings) is the oldest surviving human art form. They provide a link with Aboriginal life, culture and customs from before European settlement. They are of the greatest importance to Aboriginal people. Painting sites are regarded as being of sacred and ceremonial significance and should never be visited except with the permission of the Aboriginal community. This permission may take the form of a site being sign posted and open to the general public as with Hands on Rock or it might require specific permission from local elders and an introduction to the owner if located on private property. All Aboriginal sites in New South Wales, no matter were they are located or whether they are recorded, are under the protection of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Painting sites are very fragile and can easily be damaged. In particular paintings must not be touched and all instructions for the care of a site should be adhered to.

Other examples of rock paintings in the Upper Hunter are:

Biame, Milbrodale
Blackfellas Cave, Widden Valley
Lizard Rock, Broke
Mount Monundilla, Glen Gallic
The Livery Stable, Nullo Mountain
The Teaching Cave, Wollombi

Information courtesy National Parks and Wildlife Service NSW.

Rock paintings in the Upper Hunter: Hands on Rock

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Located on the extreme western border of the Upper Hunter Valley region at Ulan, Hands on Rock is a spectacular sandstone over hang situated on the edge of a dry creek basin of great spiritual significance.

The site is located on the traditional boundary of the Wiradjuri and Wanaruah nations and was a meeting place where ceremonies and trading were conducted between these nations and the Kamilaroi and coastal nations from what is now the Lower Hunter, such as the Worimi.

Stone, ochre, songs, ceremonies and dances were typical of the items exchanged at the site and indicative of the total integration of the cultural and commercial life of Aboriginal people. There was not the compartmentalization of activities that we see in modern Anglo based cultures.

The corroborees held here could number hundreds of people and depending on the occasion might include people from hundreds of kilometres around.

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The hand and animal feet stencils which proliferate over the rock face are in red ochre and of unknown age. Currently some of the paintings are deteriorating causing much concern for the caretakers of the site, the local Aboriginal community of Mudgee.

Hands on Rock also features a number of sandstone rock formations of the pagoda type, the faces of which act as sentinels or watchers over the ceremonial area. There is a powerful feeling of presence at the site.

A number of carved trees once stood at an associated site approximately ten kilometres to the south of Hands on Rock. Four of these were removed when the coal mine at Ulan was established and the preserved trunks are now kept in the Gulgong Pioneer Museum at Gulgong.

Hands on Rock shelter

 

Painting on rock surfaces requires a suitable stable type of rock. The paints were made from pigments (colours) derived from many naturally occurring substances, such as ochre (red and yellow), gypsum (white and cream) and charcoal (black). These materials were either found locally or traded from elsewhere.
The pigments were usually ground and mixed with a base (water, blood or sap) to make a paste. The paint was then applied using brushes of chewed twigs or with the fingers and hand or blowing from the mouth. In some examples the pigments have been applied dry and direct by rubbing or drawing onto the rock.

Hands on Rock is a typical example of the stencil style of rock painting were by the image is created by blowing wet paint from the mouth either directly or through a tube over and around an object held against the rock face. Most often, like with Hands on Rock, the human hand although the technique was also used to depict many other things such as animal feet (also at Hands on Rock) and skins, boomerangs, axes, woomeras, pipes, baskets and shields.

Click on image for high resolution photo (500k)

Information courtesy National Parks and Wildlife Service NSW.

 

Rock paintings in the Upper Hunter: Biame

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This rock painting depicts the creation spirit Biame. Creator of all things, this particular image is known to the local Wanaruah people as the Keeper of the Valley.

From the wall of the sandstone overhang south of Singleton he looks out through the Milbrodale Gap, over what is now the Putty Road, and into the Upper Hunter Valley. His long arms outstretched embracing the Valley and its people.

For the Wanaruah the large white eyes see all that happens while the white oval shape on the lower abdomen represents the centre of spiritual power. The white lines on the sides of the torso transfer this power to other parts of the body, in particular the arms allowing Biame to fly. The parallel white lines on either side of the body stand for the seven tribal groups of the Wanaruah nation.

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The site of the Biame painting is of great importance to the local people. When the first white man recorded the painting in the early nineteenth century the creek flats immediately in front of the cave were still a huge bora ground surrounded by carved trees. Traditionally Biame is associated with bora ceremonies across much of New South Wales. The bora ground and the trees are now long gone, farming having come to the area shortly after first exploration.

The site is significant in style too, featuring a large (the hand span is approximately 6 metres/18 feet) pictorial representation of Biame in two colours (red and white) and surrounded by white stencils of boomerangs, stone axes, digging sticks, hands and hands and arms. Tantalizingly faint traces of further stencils and paintings also remain on the cave wall and there is the magnificent vista to be seen when following Biame’s gaze.

INSERT PHOTO

The smaller hand stencils represent the young uninitiated girls or boys while the forearm and hand stencils represent the older initiated members of the tribe. During the ceremonies leading to initiation the young people would place their hands onto the stencils thus being introduced to the ancestral being Biame and the world of initiated law. The stencils of objects represent the gifts of the everyday world.

INSET PHOTO

While the bora ceremonies no longer take place the site is used by the Wanaruah as a cultural teaching site with hundreds of school children and other visitors each year experiencing the importance of the continuity of Aboriginal life and getting a little taste of that life. All who come to this place feel the presence of Biame and sense that he still watches over the people and the Valley.

Information courtesy
National Parks and Wildlife Service NSW,
Wannin Thanbarran - A History of Aboriginal Contact in Muswellbrook and the Upper Hunter Valley by Greg Blyton, Deidre Heitmeyer and John Maynard Muswellbrook Shire Council 2004, Australian Dreaming - 40,000 Years of Aboriginal History ed. by Jennifer Isaacs Landsdowne Press 1980 and thanks to Gle

Tiddalik the Frog

The Dreaming: Tiddalik the Frog

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This natural landscape feature depicts the dreaming being Tiddalik the Frog. Tiddalik is the key character in one of the most widely related dreaming stories on the eastern seaboard of Australia.

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Located on the side of a narrow valley near the township of Wollombi, Tiddalik is looking up Slacks Creek which flows to join the Wollombi Brook. An extraordinary rock formation, this site never fails to inspire awe in those who see it.

Tiddalik was a greedy frog who drank all the water in the land, draining the rivers and billabongs, until the other animals were forced to try to get Tiddalik to give up the water. The wombat suggested that they make Tiddalik laugh and then the waters would be released. A number of animals tried but none could move him to mirth until the eel stepped forward. The eel did a dance which made Tiddalik laugh and his great mouth opened releasing the water back into the land. Tiddalik shrank to his present size and, ashamed, became a shy creature that hides in the reeds and mud.

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To this day Slacks Creek only supports eels no other large fish live in those waters.

The Tiddalik site is connected to a number of other sites on the same ridge including the Teaching Cave, the Menstruation Cave the Birthing Cave and, remarkably, two other rock formations resembling frogs. These sites also relate to the various sacred sites within nearby Yengo National Park, in particular the rock engravings at Finchley and the mythological mountain sites of Big and Little Yengo.

While Tiddalik the Frog at Wollombi is a spectacular natural rendition of a frog in sandstone, natural features of the landscape or mythological sites are very common across Australia. Natural features such as mountains, rock outcrops, rivers, creeks and waterholes form the physical parts of stories about the journeys and adventures of the ancestral beings. These sites give substance to the Dreamtime. Often the stories are used to teach the lore of the tribe and the proper ways of behaving. Such stories often include the changing of lore breakers into a natural feature of the landscape.

Natural features may also mark a significant ceremonial area like the pagoda formations at Hands on Rock at Ulan.

The importance of mythological sites cannot be underestimated for most are available to us only through the knowledge of Aboriginal people. The stories of these places are passed from generation to generation and form one of the strongest bonds within the Aboriginal community.

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Information courtesy National Parks and Wildlife Service NSW; Tiddalick – The Frog Who Caused a Flood by Robert Roennfeldt, Penguin Books Australia 1980; thanks to Glen Morris.