Rock Painting Sites in The Kimberley Region

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region
Descriptions and Copies of the Paintings by Katharina and Andreas

Lommel
An Account of an Expedition by the Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunde,Munich, to the

North-West Australia in 1955
Contents
Foreword Pages 3 - 9
Preface Pages 10 - 11
Studying and Copying Rock Paintings Pages 12 - 23
The Rock Paintings of North-West Australia - Pages 24 - 25

An Outline History of Discovery and Previous Study
The Wandjina Figures Pages 26 - 28
The Small-Figure Rock Paintings in the Bradshaw Style Pages 29 - 30
The Rock Painting Site at Ngungunda Pages 31 - 36
The Rock Painting Site at Molcott Pages 37 - 41
The Rock Painting Site at Aulen Pages 42 - 49
The Rock Painting Site at Wonalirri Pages 50 - 61
The Rock Painting Site at Sundron Pages 62 - 65
Appendix
Journal of the Australasian Universities Pages 66 - 67

Modern Languages Association Christchurch,
New Zealand, November. 1970
Modern Culture influences on the Aborigines Pages 68 - 80
You can view any of the sections, by clicking one of the titles above
Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 2

Foreword
by John Robinson
When I was twenty years old, way back in 1955, I worked on GoGo station as a cattle
drover in Kimberley, the far Northwest of Australia. In those days the herds of cattle, 300
head strong, were walked the 400 odd miles between Fitzroy Crossing and Derby, before
being loaded onto ships bound south for Perth to be slaughtered and frozen for export
to England.
After one of these trips, while washing the dust from my throat with a cold beer at the bar
of the Fitzroy Crossing Hotel, I found myself standing beside the local policeman, P.C.
Buster Thorpe. Buster was complaining that he had to leave the following week for a
700-mile ride over the Leopold Ranges that separated Fitzroy from Gibb River station. The
country was so rough the only way to cross it was on mule back, it being too tough for
horses. The journey would take a month, which was another reason he was upset, as he
had only just got married. I told him that the journey sounded exciting to me, especially as
it would be the last mounted police patrol ever made due to a planned road. He said that
he would be glad of some company, as otherwise it would just be him and the black tracker.
I would have to provide my own mules, packs and a black tracker to look after the animals.
I went to see my boss and he agreed to lend me everything I required in lieu of wages. So
began one of the most wonderful adventures I have ever had the good fortune to
experience, an adventure that also introduced me to a chain of events that have enriched
my entire life. Buster's job was to show the flag of the law to both whites and blacks as we
rode between the stations north and south of the mountain divide. On top of this he had
been instructed to check out a couple of Germans who were copying Aboriginal paintings
somewhere on Gibb River Station.
I kept a diary during the trip and the entry for June 22nd 1955 reads as follows:-
Mt Barnett to Gibb River. ‘...........and came to Snake Creek which we found was dry,
so we postponed lunch and pushed on another five miles to the Hann River, where the
trackers said we were bound to find water. By the time we reached it, we were past
hunger, so after watering the mules we rode on into the Gibb River homestead. Mr
Russ, the owner, was away but his wife welcomed us in and gave us a wonderful supper.
We had been in the saddle for nine hours and ridden some 40 miles over very rough
country, so we and the mules were all whacked. June 23rd. Mrs Russ, who is a half-caste
and has eight children, is a very large woman. She lives out here all alone most of the
time and I have great admiration for her. They have a good garden with bananas and
pineapples. They water from three hand-dug wells with buckets. The timber in the
house is all hand squared and mostly of foot thick beams.

In the afternoon we went in search of the two German scientists, who are studying native
paintings. The paintings are under a mushroom shaped rock, and done in charcoal, red
and yellow ochre, and white chalk. Some of the paintings are snake rain gods and others
look like Astronauts.
The snake paintings are fertility Gods. [p34] The main painting is of a snake coiled around
a little girl. Andreas Lommel and his wife told us that the black fellows believe their souls
are found in water holes and depending on where the baby is born, then that is the child's
country and the place his or her soul will return to when they die. Around the paintings,
which are rain gods [rain comes when you touch them] are several rectangular rocks stood
up in other rocks. These are the original snakes coming out of their holes.’ [p31]
Looking back I can't help but wonder what Andreas and Katharina must have thought
when Buster and myself, followed by our black trackers, rode into their camp. Buster had
polished up his police badge and was wearing a revolver, so looked very official. It must
have been quite a surprise. Not for a moment did I think that my meeting Andreas and
Katharine in 1955 would be repeated in Germany in 1991 and again in 2002.
Andreas listening to the interpretations of the Wonalirrie site in 1955

Photo Katharina Lommel

Once you have visited Kimberley you are
trapped for life by its beauty and remoteness.
For three months of the year it is a Garden of
Eden although the other nine months are
nearer to Hell. In 1981 I returned with some
friends and Peter my son. Then in 1989
Damon de Laszlo asked me to take him and
his family. On this trip Margie my wife joined
us along with painter Charles McCubbin and
his wife Pat. It was during this trip that we met
Grahame Walsh quite by chance.
In 1990 Robert A. Hefner III with his son Charles

joined me, and I arranged for Grahame Walsh
to guide us to some Wandjina sites. During
talk around the campfire Grahame not only
introduced us to the Bradshaw paintings but
also mentioned Lommel’s name in connection
with early work done on the Unambal tribe,
the painters of the Wandjinas. Grahame could
not believe it when I told him that I had met
Andreas and Katharina in 1955 when they
were studying both the Wandjinas and the A Wandjina figure discovered near Mount
Bradshaw Paintings on Gibb River station. Agnes in 1981 and revisited in 1990
Robert A. Hefner III and John Robinson at a Wandjina cathedral gallery

In 1991 the Bradshaw Foundation was formed and the Trustees viewed some twenty or
so Bradshaw galleries by helicopter with Grahame Walsh, in preparation for publishing
his book, the first on these quite amazing possibly 17,000 year old rock paintings.
Why is it important to now publish this collection of all the paintings by Katharine
Lommel with Andreas's accompanying notes? The reason is that I believe the following
pages will add yet more flavour to the Mysteries of the Kimberley and the Bradshaw Paintings.
Andreas lived with the nearly unspoilt Aborigines of the Unambal Tribe in 1938. When
he asked the natives about the Bradshaw Paintings they hardly recognised that they
existed, saying that they were of no concern to them.
So who did paint these quite amazing images? They are unarguably the best and oldest
representations of human beings yet discovered on Earth. Who ever the artists were they
shared the drawing talent of artists as skilled as Albrecht Durer.
In December of 2002 Damon de Laszlo, chairman of the Bradshaw Foundation, visited

the Museum Fur Volkerkunde exhibition in Munich of Katharina Lommel's painting.
He is seen here with one of Katharina's copies of a Bradshaw painting

Katharina painting the Snakes at Ngungunda in 1955
Photo Andreas Lommel

John Robinson with the Wandjina Snake painting that Katharina did at the site
he visited in 1955 with Mounted Police Constable Buster Thorpe
Andreas and Katharina Lommel in 2002 while discussing their Kimberley experiences of 1955

Andreas reminiscing with Damon about his life with the Unambal Tribe in 1938
Only one or two small visible changes since June 23rd 1955

Preface
This book contains copies of all the paintings that Katharina Lommel did in the environments
of Gibb River Station in Northwest Australia in the year 1955.
There were two German expeditions to Northwest Australia. The first one was sent out by
Leo Frobenius in the year 1937/38. The expedition was led by Dr. Petri, who worked in the
Glenelg River region between the long since abandoned Government Station Munya and
the long since abandoned Mission Station Kunmunya.
Our second expedition had the same aim as the first one: copying Aboriginal rock paintings.
We worked in the surroundings of the Gibb River Station for six months in the year 1955
and copied rock paintings and brought a large collection back to the Staatiches Museum
fur VoIkerkunde in Munich.
Leo Frobenius (1873 - 1938) had an institute in Frankfurt on Main and sent out from
there expeditions in all regions of the world to copy and photograph rock paintings. He
was one of the main researchers of prehistorical rock paintings. The last expedition he
organised was the one in 1938 to Australia. Here he hoped to still find Aborigines, who
had lived and worked with the paintings and could tell us what the paintings meant
to them.
This first expedition had two painters: Agnes Susanne Schulz and Gerda Beck-Kleist. Agnes
Susanne Schulz wrote a short report about her work in Northwest Australia: Agnes Susanne
Schulz: Northwest Australian Rock Paintings: Memoirs of the National Museum of Victoria,
Melbourne, January 1956.
I was a member of this expedition and my report could only be published after the war in
1952. Andreas Lommel, ‘The Unambal” was published in English in 1997 by Takarakka
Nowan Kas Publications.
The second German expedition was made in 1955 by me and my wife Katharina. It was
financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. We are both disciples of Leo
Frobenius. I studied ethnology with him, my wife Katharina worked for years with him,
copying rock paintings in the Middle East, North Africa and finally in Spain in the Altamira
cave. Our aim was to copy rock paintings in Australia and bring the copies to the Staatliches
Museum fur Volkerkunde in Munich. There were two German publications: “Die Kunst des
funften Erdteils”, 1959, and “Die Kunst des alten Australian”, 1988, Prestel-Verlag in
Munchen. There is so far no translation for English readers.

We stayed for six months of the dry season at the Gibb River station. We were invited to
stay there because Mrs Russ, the wife of the farmer, a half-caste, remembered me from
1938. She was educated at Lombadina Mission and I spent a night there. The other one
who remembered me vividly was Joe, the head stock boy. Joe, a half-caste, was a wonderful
person. [p13]
I travelled with him widely between Kunmunya and Wandja Station in the Seder and Glenelg
river regions. As a half-caste he was completely integrated in the Aboriginal culture,
had two wonderful wives and was everywhere regarded as a very trustful and reliable man.
Mrs Russ had been married to Fred Russ, the station owner for many years. We paid for
food and shelter, horses and donkeys and an Aboriginal guide who led us to the rock
painting sites. Katharina writes of how we worked and lived there in her article: ‘Studying
and copying rock paintings’.

Studying and Copying Rock Paintings
by Katharina Lommel
We had written to a number of stations in the north-western area of the Northern Territory
where we knew that rock painting sites must exist. The owners either failed to answer at
all or flatly refused our request for assistance. The only helpful reply came from Gibb River
and the Russ family. As it later turned out, the farmer’s wife — an Aborigine woman — had
met my husband during his previous visit to Australia in 1938, and still remembered him
with affection.
Mrs Russ with some of her children Fred Russ with his youngest daughter
We stayed for six months at the station during the dry season — between the annual
monsoons — and were provided with native guides who knew the places where the rock
paintings were to be found. On horseback, and with mules to carry our camping equipment
and drawing utensils, we rode to the sites, where we stayed for several days or even weeks
at a time. The animals were looked after by the natives.
The sites of the paintings we copied were all in the area around Gibb River station. Their
names are Ngungunda, Molcott, Aulen, Wonalirri and Sundron.

Fred Russ preparing the horses for our trip
All these sites featured paintings in the so-called

Wandjina style, showing large horizontal
figures of ‘gods’. These are surrounded by
pictures of animals, together with numerous
other small paintings which clearly fall into
a separate stylistic category.
(pictured right)
Joe, head stockman, with his little boy

Wandjina style ‘god’

After riding for a day or more through an empty landscape with no sign of human habitation,
the visual impact of a rock painting can be quite overwhelming. It is as if an endles past,
far beyond the bounds of known history, were staring one straight in the face.
Katharina tracing Wandjina from the rock face

Using lithographic crayon, I traced the paintings carefully onto a special type of foil, then
transferred the traced image onto drawing paper and filled in the colours.
My husband took the photographs for purposes of authentication. In many cases it is not
possible to photograph the paintings exactly as the surface of the stone is generally not
smooth and even, but full of hollows and indentations which the camera cannot capture.
We used sticking-plaster to fasten the large sheets of tracing foil to the unpainted parts of
the rock. Doing this inevitably involved touching the paintings but did no damage.
The Aborigines claim that they, or their ancestors, did not actually paint the pictures but
merely ‘touch’ them, to make rain or ensure better crops, by renewing the colours. They
were therefore eager to see whether our ‘touching’ would have the same effect. In some
cases, a small amount of rain did indeed fall and Mr Russ commented that our work was
evidently good for the grass!
We rolled the copies of the paintings up in stout metal tubes, which had been specially
made for the purpose, and transported them back to the station by mules.
Katharina transferring tracing to canvas on the concrete floor of the

Gibb River homestead, watched by the Russ children

Our provisions consisted of salted meat, dried apricots, onions and yams from the farm.
Little Jerry, the five-year-old son of the Aborigine couple who looked after us, preferred
oatmeal porridge with raisins. He was a very intelligent boy, with a thirst for knowledge,
and he was learning to read and write with the children, tutored by their mother with the
aid of a schools radio programme for outlying areas.
Jerry’s own mother was an incurable leper, living in a hospital many miles away. He was
brought up by the wife of our guide — “I grow him”, she said — who had no children of
her own.
The guide, whose name was Nipper, was a tall, powerful, good-humoured man who
was also very knowledgeable. His second wife, Djabel, had the self-possessed manner
of a true grand dame. On one occasion in the past, she had been almost killed by a
jealous suitor wielding a shovel spear. She could not ride and was unwilling to learn.
Instead she was forever on the lockout for edible plants and flowers, or for bees,
whose flight patterns told her where to go looking for honeycombs. Little Jerry sat on
the horse’s withers, in front of his father, who tried to initiate him into the mysteries
of tracking.
Tracking is a particular skill of the Australian aborigines. Even on bone-hard ground, they
can glean a great deal of information about the passing of any creature, animal or human,
by looking at the exact pattern of the prints in the layer of small stones and, other debris
that covers the earth. The slightest variation in the angle or pressure of the foot can be highly
significant. Every morning we had a fresh opportunity to marvel at this skill, when Nipper
rounded up the animals which had strayed off during the night to graze elsewhere.
We soon realised that our companions were only familiar with the large Wandjina paintings.
They were unaware of the smaller figures nearby, which had to be pointed out to them,
and even then they were hesitant in acknowledging what they saw.
In Wonalirri we camped inside the cave where we were working. Our water came from
a small spring at the base of the rock, which quickly dried up, so that my husband literally
had to use a spoon to fill the billycan for our morning tea, while fighting off a swarm of
thirsty dragonflies and hornets. Eventually he found another, more reliable water source
further down the valley. On one occasion, the two Aborigines barely managed to prevent
a dying bull from contaminating the water: fortunately, the animal collapsed just before
reaching the edge of the pool.
In Ngungunda and Molcott the watering-places were somewhat further away. We had to
avoid fetching water in the early evening when the cattle came to drink as they were not
only thirsty, but angry and aggressive too. As the dry season wore on collecting water
posed a growing problem.

Wonalirri camp site
In Wonalirri we camped right beside the paintings, while at Aulen we stayed by the river.
But in Sundron we had to set up our camp well away from the painting site, which the
Aborigines held in deep awe. At each site we recorded such paintings as were still visible.
I copied the pictures whose outlines were the clearest, the ones which seemed particularly
important, and especially the small-figure compositions, after we had realised that these
works, which our guides had failed to recognise, were the oldest specimens of rock painting.
My husband often had to assist me. Some of the pictures were painted on the undersides
of horizontal rock shelves, while others, such as Star Wandjina and Plum-Tree Wandjina

were between 450 and 600 cm long: in either case, we had to fix the paper in position with
adhesive tape and trace the image section by section, pressing the sheet to the rock. This
could only be done by working in tandem.
We worked in Wonalirri for three weeks, at the end of which it took our guides fully half a day
to round up the four horses and five mules in preparation for our return. Meanwhile the two of
us packed our things, rolling up the painting copies and stowing them away, in the specially-made
protective tubes.
Large reclining Wandjina figure

600 x 150 cm
This image of a Wandjina figure carrying a Plum Tree is painted on the ceiling of a large
rocky overhang. The site is evidently a place where trees and plants proliferate. In 1955 the
picture was in a good state of preservation: the lines around the head, the feather decorations
and the feet were all clearly visible. The body is painted in white and shows little interior
detail. From the leaves on the tree it is apparent that the figure received several repaints
sometime ago; in each case, the lines deviate slightly from those drawn by the previous artists.
Snake with three horns

375 x 60 cm
The snake’s elongated body is decorated with pictures of animals, plants and Wandjina
heads. Our guides declined to comment on the painting’s meaning.

Page 20
Enlarged images of the Large reclining Wandjina figure and Snake with three horns
The last site we visited was Sundron, partly because it was furthest away from Gibb River.
Nipper calculated that the journey would take two or three days. Our departure was
scheduled for the following day. The usual air of calm was missing, everyone was talking
excitedly, and finally the Aborigines told us about a great flood which had happened not
long ago when a white stockman had been driving his herd past Sundron, continually cracking
his whip. A flood tide had come rushing up the Gibb River, invading everything,
including the station. Mrs Russ remembered the flood, and told us it had occurred some
ten to fifteen years ago.
We rode for two days. Our packs contained only the barest necessities, which meant
that we had no tarpaulin to shield us from the sun. Hopefully the rocks would provide
enough shade. By the time we pitched our camp by a small water-hole, night had
already fallen. The next morning, Nipper said he was going off to look for the painting
site. All we could see was tall grass, scrub and eucalyptus trees, with no rocks of any
significant size.
In the evening Nipper returned, exhausted, having failed to find any paintings. The same
happened the next day. On the third day, he asked us for some matches, the idea being
toburn off the tall grass so that he would be able to see better. The scrub all around our
camp was smouldering when he came back at nightfall, once again in a state of total
exhaustion. That night, we heard him hallucinating. The following morning he said that
only a man called ‘Charlie’ could find Sundron, because, as he explained, “It belongs to
him”. We allowed him to ride back and fetch the site’s rightful ‘owner’.
Four days later, Nipper arrived in the evening, accompanied by Charlie. Setting off at daybreak,
we rode for about a mile, until our new guide told us to dismount and hitch the horses
to a tree. He would show my husband the way to the rock, but only on foot, and I would
have to stay behind as the site was strictly out of bounds to women.
The two of them soon returned. We thanked Charlie and arranged with Nipper that he
would come back in the evening to collect us; the two Aborigines then departed, taking
our horses with them.
In the meantime, I had unpacked our working materials. By the evening of the first day
we had finished copying the large painting of the two crocodiles, measuring 230 x 300cm.
This left us with plenty of time to study and record details of the colours, in addition to
taking photographs and looking for further paintings. Charlie had given Nipper some old
potato sacks in which to wrap the copies of the paintings before carefully packing them
in the metal tubes. He warned us not to follow our normal practice of showing the copies
to other Aborigines on our return; nor, he emphasised, were the pictures to be exhibited
in a cinema.

Large painting of two crocodiles at Sundron
230 x 300 cm
It was as if we had suddenly caught a glimpse of something hitherto concealed from us, which
might now jeopardise the work to which we had devoted so much effort. For us, too, Sundron
became a strange, uncanny place. We had to ride there alone, tie up our horses, and return alone.
Our Aborigines never left the camp. At night we heard them singing and clapping their music sticks.
Our task was completed.We wanted to set off as early as possible so as to arrive before
nightfall at the water-hole mid-way between Sundron and Gibb River.

This time, Nipper had great difficulty in rounding up the mules, with the result that we left
Sundron at midday, when the heat is at its fiercest. Nipper’s nervousness communicated
itself to us as well. He kept a particularly close eye on the five mules, one of which was carrying
the copies we had made. He said that if we met up with a herd of wild donkeys, our
pack animals would gallop off with them, and catching them would be impossible.
In the event, there was only one encounter of this kind, and the wild donkeys ran off again
before their domesticated cousins had a chance to make up their minds about whether or
not to join them.
This time we were continually vexed by the mules, which not only refused to follow but
were forever seeking an opportunity to divest themselves of their heavy burden. Loading
them up again was a tiresome business, especially in burning heat and under severe
pressure of time.
It was dark when we reached the small water hole. In the night there was a heavy rain and
no shelter and we could not sleep. Our animals remained with us near their packs so we
could start next day very early. On Gibb River station aborigines had heard us coming and
welcomed us back.
A few days later to avoided the wet season

and continuous rain in the North of Australia,
we travelled southward by aeroplane and
started to work on copying aboriginal
implements, pearl shell and Tjurungas
[p75] in the Museums.
Today one can reach Gibb River from

Derby by car. At our time we had no noise
of motors or radios. In the dusk we only
heard the animals which came to the water
hole. We had only a camp-fire and the stars
and at full moon we heard the howling of
the dingoes.
(right) Bushman wagon with wooden wheels

The Rock Paintings of North-West Australia
Outline History of Discovery and Previous Study by Andreas Lommel
The Wandjina rock paintings were discovered accidentally in 1838 by George Grey, the
subsequent governor of South Australia. Grey studied the subject in some depth and came
up with two significant, but conflicting ideas. On the one hand, he accorded the paintings
the status of ‘art’, which was novel in a sense: up to that point, no European had seen these
‘primitive’ pictures in such terms. On the other hand, however, Grey refused to believe that
paintings of such quality could have been made by the Aborigines; instead, he attributed
them to influences from outside Australia — probably, he thought, from Egypt. Today, this
strikes one as extremely far-fetched: theories of Melanesian or Indian influence would
seem a great deal more plausible.
The first systematic research on the rock art of Australia was undertaken by Daniel
Sutherland Davidson, a dedicated and meticulous American scholar who spent several
years studying the tools, weapons and paintings of the Aborigines and published a series
of maps showing the distribution of specific motifs over the entire sub-continent. Davidson
placed the study of Aboriginal art on a serious academic footing, leaving no doubt as to his
own high opinion of the artistic quality of the paintings and carvings on the tools, weapons
and shields. (See D.S. Davidson, Aboriginal Australian and Tasmanian Rock Carvings
and Paintings. American Philosophical Society Memoirs, vol. V, “Philadelphia, 1936; and
A Preliminary Consideration of Aboriginal Australian Decorative Art. American
Philosophical Society Memoirs, Philadelphia, 1937).
These paintings and carvings have only recently been accepted as art by Europeans and
white Australians; to this extent, Davidson was far ahead of his time.
The first full-scale study of the rock paintings of the Kimberley region of north-west
Australia was carried out by the anthropologist A.P. Bikin (1891-1979). Bikin showed how
the process of discovery and research had advanced in several distinct stages, beginning
with occasional finds which had formed the basis of private and local collections, and
progressing via random individual efforts towards the fully-fledged scientific investigation
which commenced in the mid 1920s.
Since then, following Elkin’s example, many Australian scholars have devoted their energies
to studying rock art. A significant breakthrough occurred in 1948 as a result of an expedition
to Arnhem Land, led by C.P. Mountford, which led to the discovery of the small-figure paintings
in and around Oenpelli. F.D. McCarthy, a member of Mountford’s team, wrote about the cave
paintings of Groote and Chasm islands and contributed a unique series of photographs of the
‘string figures’ of Arnhem Land. (See F.D. McCarthy, ‘The String Figures of Yirkalla’).

In 1940 Norman B. Tindale published his map showing the demographic distribution of the
various Aboriginal ‘tribes’ or clans. He also took a keen interest in rock paintings.
Today, the study of rock art is conducted under the academic umbrella of AURA, Australian
Research Association. The most recent major survey of the field was published by Grahame L.
Walsh (Australia’s Greatest Rock Art. Bathurst NSW, 1988). His book contains a fine selection
of colour plates of the paintings and carvings at the major sites, which are accompanied in
each case by a small map and a photograph showing the site’s general aspect and setting,
together with comprehensive bibliographical references.
It was Elkin, too, who made the first attempt to relate the art of the Aborigines to other so
called primitive cultures, on the Asian mainland, in the hope of expanding the parochial
horizons of Australian scholars and persuading them to take note of developments elsewhere,
in a monograph titled ‘Aboriginal Man of High Degree’ (Sydney 1945), he compared the
‘wise men’ and medicine men of Australia with the Buddhist lamas of Tibet, drawing a
number of parallels between their respective world-views and practices.
The book earned few plaudits. At this point, far too little was known about Asian customs
to make such a bold comparison stick, and in any case, the attitude of Australian scholars
to unconventional ideas of this kind was highly unreceptive.
Elkin also smoothed the path for the 1938 expedition to the Kimberley region by the
Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt. At the time, the Institute’s director, Leo Frobenius
(1873- 1938), was endeavouring to compile a world atlas of rock art. He regarded rock
paintings as the first ‘written’ documents of human culture, and organised expeditions to copy
the pictures in Norway, Spain, North and South Africa, the Middle East, and finally, Australia.
This first-over German expedition to north-west Australia amassed an extensive collection

of copies of rock paintings. Only a part of these pictures has so far been published, by
Agnes-Susanne Schulz, who made the copies in collaboration with the painter Gerta
Beck-Kleist (see Agnes-Susanne Schulz, ‘North-West Australian Rock Paintings’, Memoirs
of the National Museum of Victoria, No. 20, Melbourne 1956, pp. 7-57). The other
members of the expedition, were Dr Helmut Petri, an American by the name of Douglas C.
Fox, an Australian, Patrick Pentony, and Andreas Lommel. Schuiz later undertook a further
expedition to Australia, this time to Arnhem Land where she mainly copied paintings in the
Oenpelli area (Agnes-Susanne Schulz, Felsbilder in Nordaustralien. Wiesbaden 1971).
Continuing the work begun in the 1930s, the Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunde in
Munich sent an expedition to north- west Australia in 1955. The numerous copies of rock
paintings made on this occasion were published in an exhibition catalogue and are now
stored at the museum. (See Andreas and Katharina Lommel, Die Kuast des Pflnften Erdteils
- Australlien. Munich 1959, and Die Kunst des alten Australien. Prestel: Munich, 1988.)

The Wandjina Figures
by Andreas Lommel
The Wandjinas are anthropomorphic figures drawn in rough outline. Some are very crude
and clumsy, but others are executed with a considerable measure of primitive refinement.
The natural curves and indentations of the stone are often used to create additional plastic
effects. Wandjinas are generally portrayed in a horizontal position, with the face enclosed
U
by a -shaped border in red or yellow ochre. Only the eyes and nose are painted, the
mouth is missing. Several mythological explanations have been advanced for the lack of a
mouth, but the proliferation of competing versions inevitably casts doubts on their plausibility.
Beneath the pictures one often finds skulls, painted in red ochre, with the lower part of the
jaw missing. These mark the site of skull burials, at the spot where people found their
‘soul-home’. Thus the mouthless faces of the Wandjinas are portraits, as it were, of the
buried and painted skulls.
The old men who acted as our guides in 1938 often approached the rock painting sites by
an oddly circuitous route. They were obeying the rule that one had to follow the exact
path, including all the detours, taken by the ancestor whose image is painted on the rock
and which found its last resting place there. Thus the journey to the site was itself a form
of commentary on the mythical memories preserved in the paintings.
The Wandjina paintings are found on the undersides of rock ledges, which shelter them
against the copious rainfalls during the wet season. The pictures are a vehicle for the
transmission of creation myths. The Aborigines believe that the world originated in what
they call Lalai the Dreaming — a primordial state which is not confined to the past but
stands outside time.
After the Wandjinas were created, they journeyed across the country and shaped it in its
present form. It was they who made the rain and dug out the rivers, who built the mountains
and levelled the plains. At a time when the stones were still ‘soft’, they built themselves
‘houses’ of stone. When they died, they lay down on the soft rocks and left the imprint of
their bodies on the surface; these marks are the rock paintings which can be seen today.
At the exact spot where they left their ‘shadow’, the Wandjinas descended into the earth;
since then, they have lived on at the bottom of the water source associated with each of the
paintings. There, they continually produce new ‘child-seeds’, which are regarded as the
source of all human life.
In the 1930s, the notion that procreation is a function of ‘dreaming’ rather than of the sexual

act still enjoyed a wide currency among the Aborigines of the Northern Territory. It was
said that the father of a child had to ‘find’ it in a dream, where it would appear to him in
the shape of his personal totem, usually an animal or a plant. In a second dream act, he
would then pass the child’s “soul” on to his wife.
As befits this view of the origins of life, the Wandjina paintings are regarded as centres of
spiritual and biological energy on which the very survival of the species depends.
Great importance is therefore attached to the annual task of repainting the Wandjinas, and
the accompanying animals and plants, in order to renew the spiritual energies which these
images harbour.
Until well into the 1930s, the Wandjina paintings occupied a key position in the religious
ideas of the Aborigines of north-west Australia.
Big Wandjina figure copied by Katharina

450 x 100 cm
The body of the Wandjina is covered with little Wandjina heads. The figure is surrounded
by numerous pictures of kangaroos and other animals as well as oval figures which
probably mean edible roots of yams. The belief of the aborigines is that a dead ancestor
figure sends out spirits of humans, animals and plants. By touching or repainting the figure
the spiritual powers will be refreshed.

Page 28
Enlargement of the Big Wandjina figure copied by Katharina
450 x 100 cm
The body of the Wandjina is covered with little Wandjina heads. The figure is surrounded by numerous pictures of kangaroos and
other animals as well as oval figures which probably mean edible roots of yams. The belief of the aborigines is that a dead ancestor sends
out spirits of humans, animals and plants. By touching or repainting the figure the spiritual powers will be refreshed.
The Small Figure Rock Paintings in the Bradshaw Style
by Andreas Lommel
In the Kimberley region one also encounters small rock paintings of human figures. Their
location varies: sometimes they are to be found in the immediate vicinity of the larger
Wandjina paintings, but sometimes they stand entirely on their own, as if they had been
dropped at random into the landscape. Invariably painted in monochrome dark red, the figures
are often shown walking or running, generally carrying a barbed spear or a boomerang.
Elaborately coiffured and ornamented, they sometimes appear to be clothed instead of going
naked. The figures are known as Bradshaws, after their discoverer, J.P. Bradshaw, who published
an illustrated account of his findings in 1892 (‘Notes on a Recent Trip to Prince Regent River’,
Royal Geographical Society of Australia. Victorian Branch. Transactions. 9(5), pp. 90-103.
The origins of this style of painting are relatively obscure. A measure of outside influence
must be assumed, as the depletion of movement is wholly uncharacteristic of indigenous
Australian art, although the weapons — the multibarbed spear and boomerang — remain
typical. Possibly the external influence was only short-lived.
A small Bradshaw style rock paintings at the Sundron copied by Katharina Lommel
86 x 41 cm
A typical Bradshaw painting. Usually the figures of these paintings are represented in
movement. Here we have a later version of the Bradshaw Style. As usual our Aborigines
did not know the picture and they were not interested in it. Katharina copied it and
probably the little dog figure between the two figures on the left side is a later addition.

These elegant little figures have been studied in detail by Grahame Walsh, whose recent
book on the subject contains a wide selection of examples.(See Grahame L. Walsh,
Bradshaws. Ancient Rock Paintings of North-West Australia. Bradshaw Foundation
Geneva 1994).
Instead of being tied to a religious context, Bradshaws are possibly an instance of creative
activity inspired by purely playful motives. The pictures are painted directly on the rock,
using any flat surface available and paying no heed to the question of protection from the
elements. Seldom over 60 cm high, the small figures are often found in groups.
In his survey of the subject, Grahame Walsh examines the question of stylistic derivation
and priority, pointing out that both types of painting, the Bradshaw and the Wandjina,
are often found at the same site. In such cases, the central picture is always the
Wandjina, with the Bradshaws distributed round about in small niches and alcoves.
Sometimes there is an element of continuity between the two styles: this is the case, for
example, in Wonalirri, where the motif of the tree is repeated and varied.
In 2000 Grahame L. Walsh wrote a third book on the Bradshaw paintings.Bradshaws:

Art of the Kimberleys, Takkarakka Mowan Kas Publications.

The Rock Painting Site at Ngungunda
by Katharina Lommel
The site is located approximately 3 and a half miles north-east of Gibb River station, on a
hill which slopes southwards towards the Ngungunda creek and is bounded on the north-east
by one of the latter’s tributaries. Large numbers of non-venomous snakes inhabit the area,
which is regarded as a mythical gathering place for the souls of dead snakes.
On the path leading to the painting, to the east

of the site, one sees, in addition, a pair of large,
elongated stones, each of which bears the
carved outline of a snake. Carved in the rocky
ground by the lower reaches of the creek,
south-west of the station, there is also a furrow,
some four metres long, with smaller stones
arranged around the edges. There are numerous
similar stone assemblages in the vicinity of the
rock painting itself. Lumps of stone resembling
miniature menhirs have been inserted in the
crevices of the natural rock formations; the top
end of one has a curved appearance reminis-
cent of a snake’s aggressive attitude. These
menhirs are located a few metres westwards of
the painting; a particularly large number of them
are also found about 100 metres to the north. Standing stones at Ngungunda

About 80 metres to the south of the painting, a vertical slab of rock set in the earth is
decorated on either side with the abraded outlines of two rampant snakes. The painting
itself is located in a west-facing shelter, formed by a single ridge of rock projecting from
the side of the cliff. It shows a total of over twenty snakes, juxtaposed in a manner that suggests
the pattern of a bird’s wing, and accompanied by a single Wandjina, whose abbreviated
body tapers off into an image of two snakes.
Rock painting site located in a west-facing shelter formed by a single,

ridge of rock projecting from the side of the cliff

Wandjina with snakes
170 x 90 cm
The picture shows a group of over twenty snakes.While the ground and the bodies are white,
the outlines are painted in bichrome combinations of black with red or yellow ochre, or in
monochrome red or yellow. The scaly appearance of the skin is conveyed by neat rows of straight
lines ending in black dots Among the reptiles is a single Wandjina head, whose body tapers
off into an image of two snakes. In 1955 the painting was in an excellent state of preservation.

To the left of the Wandjina head, the paint has been washed away by water seeping
through the rock. The painting continues on the other side, with the image of a coiled
snake whose abdomen contains a clutch of eggs. On the right is another picture of a snake,
this time in a spiral shape, accompanied by a small human figure.
Snake with eggs (left)

106 x 60 cm
This aggressive portrayal was evidently
influenced by the natural contours of the
rock. Its vibrant colours make the painting
impossible to overlook, even when seen
from a long way off. The site is known as a
major breeding ground for non-venomous
snakes. The snakes live under and around
the rock, and did not abandon their territory
even when the expedition set up its tents at
the site. In 1955 the colours — red, white
and black — were relatively fresh.
Coiled snake and human (below)

Adjacent to the painting shown on the left is
a depletion of a coiled snake, accompanied
by a human figure. The work is evidently
new, and the quality is poor; the human
figure appears to be clad in a kind of
night-dress. (Photograph only: no copy made)

The second snake also has a clutch of eggs. In the large snake picture, several small
anthropomorphs are positioned in such a way that the snakes appear to be engorging them.
Set on a white ground, the contours of the snakes are painted in combinations of black with
red or yellow ochre, or in plain red or yellow. The scaly appearance of their skin is conveyed
by neat rows of straight lines ending at either side in black dots.
The natural sculptural effect of the stone is exploited very skilfully, especially in the
depletion of the spiralling snake on the left, whose visual impact is heightened by its location
in a small alcove. The relative freshness of the colours suggests that the painting in its
present form is no more than a few years old.
The natives told us that the painting site was a nesting place for Ungud snakes. Like the
natural stone formations in the area round about, the stone arrangements point to the places
where the snakes emerge from the underground realm which they are thought to inhabit.
Our Aboriginal companions expressed surprise at the paintings’ excellent state of preservation,
while claiming, however, that the pictures had not been there the last time they visited the
site — i.e., the previous year. Since the site had been seen and recorded as early as 1953 or
1954, this could not possibly be the case. (See E.A.Worms, ‘Contemporary and Prehistoric
Rock Paintings in Central and Northern North Kimberley’, Anthropos 50, 1955, pp. 546-566.)
However, the contradictory assertion at least made one thing clear: that the painting was new
and modern. This conclusion was borne out by the stylistic aspect of the work, which lacks
formal clarity, in a less than successful attempt to modernise traditional imagery, the painter
has arranged the snakes beneath the Wandjina into a shape resembling a human shoulder.
Close by the watering-place associated with the picture, but on the opposite, southern bank
of the creek, are the remains of three further rock paintings. Executed in red on a vertical rock
face, these pictures are protected from the rain and sun.
One of these paintings shows an erect human figure with raised hands and slightly
bent wrists. Its head is indicated by a plain circle: there is no facial detail. The drawing is
crudely naturalistic.
Adjacent to this is a crouching figure whose body and limbs are drawn in parallel red lines.
Again, the head is indicated by a plain circle, but in this case, the eyes and mouth are present,
if only in rudimentary form. Little can be said about the third figure, whose outlines are no
more than barely discernible.
The Aborigines had not shown us these paintings, but subsequently admitted that they had
been fully aware of their existence, and although they made no secret of the fact that our
discovery had upset them, they refused to explain why.

Standing figure Crouching figure
90 x 45 cm 62 x 48cm
(Standing figure) Painted in red on a vertical rock face near the watering-place at
Ngungunda, this figure stands out very clearly in the landscape. Its feet have only four toes,
an anatomical peculiarity it shares with the spirit figures in the primitive paintings of eastern
Arnhem Land. A further unusual feature of the picture is the fact that the figure seems to
be wearing a kind of hood, so that only its eyes remain visible. Next to the head there is
painted a circle and a semicircle — allusions, perhaps, to the sun and moon?
(Crouching figure) The body of this figure is drawn in parallel lines; the arms are bent at
the elbow, the mouth and eyes roughly outlined. A burst of rays issues from the head. Like
its erect companion, the crouching figure is painted in red. Its aggressive pose is perhaps
intended to disconcert the viewer.

The Rock Painting Site at Molcott
by Katharina Lommel
The Molcott site is on a hill that slopes westwards down to a bend in the Hann River. By
the path stands a single Mushroom-shaped rock with a series of overhangs which protect
the paintings from the elements.
The painting- site at Molcott

Photograph (1955) showing the layout of the site.The painting, executed on the underside
of a rock shelf and sheltered from the elements, is visible for several hundred metres.
The largest of the paintings, on the south-west side of the rock, is visible from a distance of
up to 800 metres. It shows a group of four (formerly five) snakes, whose bodies are outlined
in yellowish-brown and black on a white ground and filled in with yellowish-brown dots.
The eyes are drawn as black patches with a border of ochre yellow interspersed with black
dots; in one or two instances a line runs between the eyes and tapers into the form of a
forked tongue. Above the snakes in the centre is a depiction of a small dog. At the edges
of the composition one notices traces of previous paintings which are very similar to the
present pictures, with the exception that the scaly appearance of the skin is indicated by
parallel rows of yellow lines culminating in black dots.

Four Snakes
136 x 135 cm
In a small alcove in the sloping surface of the rock face, is a Wandjina painting, now
faded, which is evidently of older vintage. On the right Katharina is shown copying the painting.
To the right of the main painting are several older pictures, now faded, which also
appear to be depictions of snakes. Further to the right, in a small recess in the sloping
surface of the rock face, there is a faded Wandjina painting which is evidently of older
vintage. A second painting of this type is to be found on the left of the main picture;
here, the only visible features are the snake’s head, and beneath it, can be seen the head
of a kangaroo, which was evidently repainted twice on separate occasions. Both of the
latter paintings are executed in an ochre yellow which has faded with age, but one can
still make out the eyes and ears, drawn from a frontal perspective, and the muzzle,
which is depicted in profile. The sculptural potential of the rock’s natural contours is
exploited to the full.
Close by this painting we found two smaller Wandjinas and a depletion of a kangaroo
which were clearly very new and executed by an unskilled hand. One of the Wandjinas is
outlined in red, the other in yellow ochre. The infill is black, and the ground a bluish white.

Two small Wandjinas and a depletion of a kangaroo
On a vertical rock face near this shelter, one notices trails of yellow and red paint which
were presumably depictions of snakes, together with a tree-like shape in yellow ochre. The
ceiling of the next shelter is decorated with three snakes, two larger examples in yellow and
a smaller one in red. These pictures, too, are faded, but the remaining traces are clear
enough to differentiate them from the other paintings at the same site. They were evidently
painted very hastily, and their style dates from an earlier period.
A further shelter contains a total of 27 Wandjinas, crudely outlined in yellow. This group
has often been photographed, and we decided not to copy it.
The sloping ceiling of yet another shelter features a painting of two echidnas which is evidently
new and stylistically related to the main painting.
According to the natives, the creature in the main painting is not an Ungud snake but a member
of the venomous, yellow-skinned species known as Bamalu, which has its ‘graveyard’ here.
Beneath the picture of the snake with the indentations, one finds a number of cut and polished
stones, signifying that Walanganda created snakes here by cutting their souls out of the rock.

27 Wandjinas outlined in yellow
Two porcupines
95 x 48 cm
The sloping ceiling of a further rock shelter features a painting of two porcupines.

The Wandjinas in the shelter are depictions of Kalaru, who came from the East, cast down
bolts of lightning and was then forced to seek shelter from the storm which he himself had
unleashed. The mythical Kalaru had only one eye, and the Aborigines claimed that this
anatomical peculiarity was reproduced in the rock painting, however, this was plainly not
the case.
In 1955 the main picture with the five snakes had evidently undergone recent repainting.
On the ground beneath the painting we found several bark palettes, together with lumps
of rock and chewed sticks which had been used to apply the colour. Our guides refrained
from commenting on the possible identity of the painter.

The Rock Painting Site at Aulen
by Katharina Lommel
The paintings at this site are executed on a vertical rock face running from east to west by
the bank of the Hann River. In the western left hand niche of the rock face, just above the
big white rock, is a faded picture of three Wandjinas.
Vertical rock face at Aulen

Only the heads and shoulders of three Wandjinas are visible, but it remains clear that the
figures are in a standing position, looking out over the river. Their colours — red and yellow
ochre — have evidently not been retouched for several years. However, the figures do not
appear to be particularly old: the Wandjina on the left shows traces of profile drawing,
which is atypical and points to modern influences. Above these figures, in a corner of the
rock face, is a picture of a turtle which is partly washed out and partly darkened with age.
Three Wandjinas

Shaped Snake
S
About fifteen metres further on, in a natural cave, is a painting of a snake, also very faded;
the body is painted red and the head black. Seated on its back is a bird. Three separate
versions of the latter motif were painted at different times, and probably in different
colours, too. While the outlines of the oldest version are now largely obscured, it is clear
that the next painting was executed in dark red and the final version in yellow ochre.
Again, skilful use is made of the sculptural qualities of the rock surface.
Recalling fragments of a mythical narrative, the Aborigines told us that the snake’s name is
Wala. It is a genuine Ungud, and very dangerous. The bird is said to be an eagle.
Our guides knew only of these two paintings and failed even to recognise the other
pictures at the site, which were executed in quite different styles.

In his account of his visit to Ngungunda, Sundron and Wonalirri in 1964, I. M. Crawford
surprisingly fails to mention this site, although it is not far from Gibb River and features one
of the most interesting collections of rock paintings in the region.
The people who ‘belonged’ to the painting were all dead, remembered only by our Aboriginal
guide and by a destitute old leper who came to the site and shyly paid his silent respects.
The next picture again shows a snake, but is painted in an entirely different style. The outlines
are drawn in dark red ochre, but the motif has evidently been repainted several times. This
has been done in such a way that parts of the older drawings remain clearly visible: the lines
follow the approximate pattern of the previous composition rather than exactly reproducing
it. The resulting picture is an attractively varied whole with a particularly animated quality.
The snake pictured above has been painted in a different style

100 x 68cm

We could see two reclining figures high up on a part of the rock face which is now inaccessible.
Either the rock formation had a different shape at the time when the painting was made, or
the painters must have lowered themselves down on ropes.
The painting shown (below left) in black, found at the base of the rock face, is a fragment
showing two masked dancers. One can still recognise the elegantly delineated legs of the one
figure and the masked upper body of the other. The disguise seems to consist of bunches of
feathers or leaves, after the fashion of the masks which persisted in central Australia until
only a few years ago: illustrations can be found in, for example, B. Spencer’s various
accounts of Aboriginal customs.
This almost life-sized figure (below right) was found in a niche in the rock face. Its contours,
painted in black, are very faded, but one can still make out the frontally depicted upper body,
together with the left shoulder and most of the right arm. The exact significance of the lines
near the right arm is unclear, but they could well refer to a weapon, such as a boomerang. A
decorative band or string runs across the chest from the right shoulder to the left hip. The
right-facing head is portrayed in profile, as well as the chin and somewhat blurred nose, the
identifiable features include a headband and feather.
Two masked dancers Life-size figure

Further up in the rock face is a group of four smaller figures, painted in various shades of
red. The pose of the central figure, coloured a dark reddish brown, suggests the elegant
movements of an accomplished dancer. Depicted frontally, but with its face in profile, it
appears to be clad in a loincloth, its thin arms are decorated with bangles.
By contrast, the figures on either side lack any sense of movement. They are shown in profile,
and their colours are faded. On the right, the body of the wasp-waisted figure tapers
upwards into a tall hairdo, with the hair piled up into a slightly skewed shape.
A meticulously accurate drawing of three double barbed spears runs through the picture
from top left to bottom right. This rock painting is the most elegant specimen we found.
The central figure has been widely imitated. It must be admitted, however, that the two
adjacent figures are considerably less impressive. Although the painting was still clearly
visible, our guides had trouble in recognising it.
Figures with double-barbed spears

This painting is located some distance away from the others, shows a group of black
figures with tall, tapering hairstyles. It is a fragment of an earlier, larger composition, most
of which appears to have peeled away, leaving only this small section on a vertical slab of
rock. One can make out the shapes of four figures, three of which are seen in profile while
the other is depicted in full dorsal view. The latter figure appears to be clothed, and carries a bag.
Group of black figures with tall tapering hairstyles
This picture, on the underside of a small

rock shelf, shows a snake which has evi-
dently been repainted many times. One
also sees the remains of an anthropomorph,
the shadowy outline of a kangaroo — both
of the latter images are drawn in red —
and a spindle-limbed stick figure. A
remarkable feature of the picture is the
combination of different styles, whereas the
portrayal of the snakes follows the conven-
tions of naive animal drawing, the headless
anthropomorph and the kangaroo are exe-
cuted in the Wandjina style, while the stick Snake-human-kangaroo drawing
figures exemplify the Bradshaw model. 56 x 33 cm

The smooth pebbles littering the floor indicate that a watercourse once ran through the
cave. The snake in the picture has been repainted many times in various patterns and layers
of colour which are often directly superimposed, the most recent addition being a headless
anthropomorph whose body and limbs recall the style of another drawing found in Aulen.
Not far from this figure, one sees the deteriorated outlines of a red kangaroo. One of the
older snake paintings also features a set of small stick figures with an anthropomorphic
appearance. The snake, now somewhat weather-beaten, is patterned with shapes that
suggest scales or feathers.
At the entrance to the cave is a small,animated

figure painted in black. (pictured right)
Although the colouring of this drawing

appears quite coherent, the picture clearly
combines several distinct stylistic
approaches: animal drawing, the Wandjina
pattern, and — albeit in a somewhat stiff
and clumsy version — the Bradshaw style.
Apart from the pictures we copied, and the

inaccessible, often faded paintings high up
in the rock which we only sketched, we
often noticed residual traces of colour
which defied identification and were only
visible under certain lighting conditions.
To us, the Aulen site seemed like a kind of rock painting gallery, with a selection of pictures
from a wide range of periods and styles.
Grahame Walsh visited the site in 1988 and managed to unearth a few more fragments of
local mythology, although he made no new discoveries, and found the pictures largely
unchanged since our visit in 1955.

The Rock Painting Site at Wonalirri
by Katharina Lommel
The site consists of a shelter, about 60 metres long and 5 metres wide, in a rock face which
forms the eastern wall of a deep gorge. A stream runs through the gorge and flows into a
tributary of the Chapman River. The various paintings in the shelter were evidently made at
different times. Above the main site, on the rock face, are the remains of a long frieze of figures
with a height of about one metre, but these are now inaccessible and difficult to recognise.
Wonalirri general over view
The main picture in the cave is divided between the vertical rear wall and a horizontal rock
surface. It shows a Wandjina, about seven metres in length, bearing a ‘tree’ slung over his
left shoulder. This, according to the Aborigines, is a species of plum tree. The name
Wonalirri is said to be a derivative from a type of edible flower.
The Wandjina wears a head-dress of two cockatoo feathers. On its body was a depletion,
already exfoliated, of a wildly animated human figure. The painting of the Wandjina is old, and
parts of it have peeled away. The leaves on the tree show traces of earlier paintings; here,
one notices that the older drawings are somewhat different from their present-day counterparts.

Large reclining Wandjina figure
600 x 150 cm
This image of a Wandjina figure carrying a Plum Tree is painted on the ceiling of a large
rocky overhang. The site is evidently a place where trees and plants proliferate. In 1955 the
picture was in a good state of preservation: the lines around the head, the feather decorations
and the feet were all clearly visible. The body is painted in white and shows little interior
detail. From the leaves on the tree it is apparent that the figure received several repaints
sometime ago; in each case, the lines deviate slightly from those drawn by the previous artists.
Detail of the large reclining Wandjina figure

On the right-hand side, under the Wandjina' s body just at the point where the horizontal
surface intersects with the vertical rock face are nine smaller Wandjina heads which seem
almost to stare at the approaching visitor. Beneath these heads, painted on a stone, is a
strikingly naturalistic depiction of a snake, together with an anthropomorphic figure.
On the vertical wall is a second large Wandjina. Its body faces leftwards, and it, too, wears
a pair of cockatoo feathers on its head. In front of the figure, set on a white ground, the
faces of three further Wandjinas are interspersed with pictures of various flora and fauna.
The body of the central figure is also decorated with a total of eight Wandjinas, accompanied
by a further set of plant and animal decorations.
The ceiling of the cave features a ‘devil’ figure,

a semi-human creature whose face consists
of a plain circle bisected by a vertical line.
Beneath the large Wandjina on the rear wall
is a picture of a snake, facing left with its
body at full stretch. It has two eyes and three
horns, and its tail displays a pattern of scales
or feathers. The body is decorated with seven
Wandjina heads and a loose arrangement of
other motifs: plants, animals and footprints.
Devil figure (pictured left)

24 x 19 cm
a small painting of a Djanba or evil spirit.
Near the end of the tree-trunk in the large Wandjina picture is a second image of a devil.
Originally painted in black, the picture is now largely faded, but its quality was probably
poor to begin with. Next to this one notices an arc-shaped line, patterned with markings
that resemble the tracks of a kangaroo.
Kangaroo tracks
21 x 23 cm
The pattern of marks resembles kangaroo
footprints. However, this interpretation
is contradicted by a myth according to
which the deceased, on entering the
kingdom of the dead, hang their feet
up on a string; the feet are then trans-
formed into bats (see the publication
Lommel, Die Unambal - Ein Stamm in
Sudwest-Australien).

To the right, diagonally opposite, is a small picture of a dancing figure wearing a head-dress
of uncertain type: it could consist of a feather, a bundle of twigs or a small tree. Beneath the
latter figure is an unidentifiable painting of a circular form with a pattern of rays emerging from
its upper and lower sections, accompanied by what seems to be a drawing of a tree.
Dancer with tree and "sun"

Height 46 cm
This small figure, also shown wearing a head-dress in the form of a plant, is dancing around
a small tree and an object, shaped like the sun, which the Aborigines described as a yam.

The ‘Dancer with tree and sun’ painting is followed by a painting of four snakes. The tails are
tangled up in a spiral, while the four right-facing heads are arranged in a staggered vertical row.
Four snakes
320 x 66 cm
Four snakes with their tails tangled up in a spiral, and theirheads,
facing rightwards, arranged in a staggered vertical row.

Above the snakes painting, also on the vertical wall, is a human figure with uplifted arms which
are slightly bent at the elbow. Painted in red, the image is old and deteriorated. The face consists
of a circle, with two eyes and a vertical line denoting the nose. The figure is wearing some kind
of head-dress made of feathers or bunches of leaves which hang down lopsidedly. The palms of
its hands appear to be open, and long, tassel-shaped adornments dangle from its elbows. Its
body gradually merges into the form of a red snake, which continues to the left as an undulating
line. The space above is filled with decorative bands of leaves and misty white dots. Two
darker patches above the figure were interpreted by the natives as depictions of female breasts.
Female figure with snake's body and plant decorations

260 x 100 cm
Here, the oldest layer of colour in the lower section of the painting is a picture of a giant purple
snake, merging into a crudely drawn human figure with outstretched arms and two darker
patches on its upper body which the natives interpreted as female breasts. The long neck is
surmounted by a diminutive round head with large eyes outlined in white. A vertical white line,
hinting at the shape of a nose, runs through the centre of the mouthless face. The figure carries
two bunches of plants, now barely recognisable; the straight lines running down from its arms
symbolise rainfall. The longstemmed plants above the body of the large snake are water plants,
although the Aborigines also interpreted them as yam leaves or tubers. In the background one
can still see the faded remnants of several earlier paintings with the same motif. Amid the
tangle of vegetation is a series of cloudy white forms, like will of the wisps. The red stem connecting
all the plants rises vertically towards a point where the rock has crumbled away, obliterating
what was probably once a painting of a large star.

Page 56
Female figure with snake's body and plant decorations
260 x 100 cm
The natives could offer no information on the latter picture, although they remembered the name of the figure, which they
called Kolandjii. The photograph shown on the next page, taken by Jutta Malnic in 1982, shows that a devil figure was added
at a later date.
Comparison Photo
The top photopgraph was taken by Andreas Lommel 1955, and is shown here with a 1982
photograph by Jutta Malnic (below), which shows that a devil figure was added at a later date.

Bradshaw painting - Figure with headdress
66 x 18 cm
The natives were unaware of this small figure, an example of the late Bradshaw style,
which was found in the vicinity of the Wonalirri site. Its more striking features include a
tightly belted waist, an extravagant hairstyle and a feather head-dress so large that the
head itself is obscured. In its right hand the figure carries a pair of boomerangs and a
barbed spear -- with a tip of the older, wooden kind later replaced by stone -- while its left
hand clutches a woomera, a throwing-stick of the type found throughout Australia.

There is a small rock painting site further down the same valley at Wonalirri site 2, but on
the other side of the gorge. On a slab of rock is an engraving of a snake, identical in form
to those found at Ngungunda. In a small shelter we found a painting of a male figure. Its
body is depicted in front view, but its head is turned to the left, while its hair is piled up
into a long, tapering shape which slopes to the right.
Above its head is a red patch which may be a feather head-dress, but the precise significance
of the shape is uncertain, in its right hand the figure clutches two boomerangs and a barbed
spear; the hooked shape on the left refers to a woomera or spear-thrower. The figure stands
approximately 60 cm high. Its outlines are completely filled in with red pigment.
Crawford tried to find this painting again in 1967. He happened to have a copy of our catalogue
Die Kunst des Funften Erdteils with him, and showed the relevant illustration to his
Aboriginal guides. They interpreted the figure as a grasshopper, despite its obviously
human form, and were unable to recognise the boomerangs and the spear.
On the left of the large Wandjina are several small pictures of human figures, possibly
dancers, which are distributed seemingly at random over the rocks. The head-dresses
appear to consist of bunches of foliage or miniature trees. Stylistically, these pictures are
difficult to categorise.
Small figure (pictured right)

27 x 11 cm
Above this earringed figure is an arc-shaped

band which may be some form of head-dress.
In its right hand, the figure carries a
boomerang. The feet are denoted by
rough lines of light colour. The tightly
nipped-in waist is similar to previous
photo and recalls the appearance of similar
figures at Aulen and Sundron.
At Wonalirri site 4 on a smooth rock face

above the main site, in the same valley but
on the opposite side, are two further paintings.
One of a group of small, slender human figures
with arc-shaped bands extending above
their heads, and the other showing a number
of dancers, depicted in frontal view, who
appear to be clutching bundles of twigs.
(P.60)

Four Bradshaw figures with spear clusters. Painting by Katharina
Three dancers
Height 31 cm (approx.)
Crudely drawn in broad bands of colour, were probably made by finger-painting. The elongated
shape and lack of anatomical detail heighten the overall impression of monumentality.

Dancer Dancer with head-dress
Height 20 cm Height 24 cm
(Above left) The remnants of a further arm

at the left-hand edge of the picture indicate
that this male figure originally formed part
of a larger group. Again, the idea of dancing
is suggested by the position of the arms,
which are bent at the elbow.
(Above right) shown in a state of semi-restrained

motion, this dancer, wears a flamboyant
head-dress which can be interpreted as a
plant, a bunch of leaves, or a tree - a
reprise of the plant theme associated with
the large reclining Wandjina and the
‘plant-woman’.
Hand and man with sausage (pictured left)

31 x 15 cm

The Rock Painting Site at Sundron
by Katharina Lommel
The Sundron site lies north of Gibb River farm, at the western most fringe of a range of hills
running on an east-west axis. It is close to Bella Creek, a tributary of the Hann River. The
painting covers parts of the ceiling and rear wall of a west-facing shelter, it shows two crocodiles,
one facing right and the other left. Both reptiles are outlined in yellow ochre and red on a
white ground. Below one sees a number of small crocodiles, together with several human
figures which are presumably destined to be devoured by the reptiles.
General view of Sundron
Close up view of Crocodile shelter

Between the two crocodiles is a cockatoo, perched on the back of a snake. Near the bird,
and again on the left side of the picture, are several crude drawings of anthropomorphs,
done in black earth, which were added at a later date. The two large crocodiles are visible from
a distance of up to 80 metres.
Our guides attributed the two crudely drawn black figures to a near-blind old man whom
we had already seen on a previous occasion at Aulen, when he visited the painting site,
quietly ignoring our presence.
Large painting of two crocodiles

230 x 300 cm
The two crocodiles are outlined in yellow ochre and red on a white ground. Below the
main motif are a number of smaller crocodiles and human figures; the latter are pre-
sumably at risk of being devoured. Between the two large crocodiles one sees a bird,
identifiable as a cockatoo, perching on the back of a snake. Also on the left side of the
picture are several crude drawings of anthropomorphs, done in black earth. These
were said to have been made at a later date by an old leper who occasionally visited
the site.
The site was visited by Crawford in 1963. Grahame L. Walsh tried to find it again in 1989
but was unable to do so because Charlie Numbulmore, who acted as our guide, and also
accompanied Crawford, had died in the meantime.

A small cave nearby, at the foot of the hill, contains an old and weather-beaten painting of
a Wandjina. This picture is significant in two respects: firstly, the arc-shaped band around
the head is unusually narrow, being no wider than the outlines of the body, and secondly,
the ‘rays’ or ‘hair’ are considerably longer than the norm.
Deteriorated Wandjina painting (pictured left)
This old and largely deteriorated painting

of a Wandjina differs considerably from
other pictures featuring the same motif.
The arc-shaped band around the head is
no wider than the outlines of the body,
and the ‘rays’ or ‘hair’ are longer than
usual. The painting was unknown to the
natives, and was only discovered by
chance, when one of the Aborigines spoke
of a dream in which he had seen ‘child-seeds’
entering the cave.
Some distance away, on a steep but relatively low rock face, is a sketch of four human
figures. Drawn in red, the diminutive figures are old and faded, but the casual elegance
of the draughtsmanship is still very striking. This painting is evidently unconnected with
the painting of the crocodiles.
Next to the figures is a childish drawing of a dog. According to local mythology, a group
of crocodiles once journeyed up the Durack River, travelling in a south-westerly direction.
On the way, they became involved in a fight, and one of them was killed and even today
his grave is still marked by an oval-shaped pile of stones about three miles north-west
of the rock painting. Some of the other crocodiles left their ‘shadow’ at the painting site,
while a further group travelled on to the Phillips Range.
Although the Aborigines said little about the painting, it still held a very definite significance
for them, and they were clearly afraid of it. We were told that a stockman driving
cattle near the site had once cracked his whip too loudly. This annoyed the crocodiles
so much that they caused a great flood, completely swamping the area around the
Gibb River.
Visiting the site posed us major problems. The Aborigines stubbornly resisted the idea,
using all manner of subterfuge, and even when we had overcome their objections,
they insisted on taking a whole range of intricate precautions before approaching any
of the paintings.

Our guide was unable to find the painting. After strenuous but fruitless attempts to uncover
it by burning off the scrub round about, he was taken ill with a fever and fell into a state of
delirium. We had to persuade another man, who ‘belonged’ to the picture, to lead us to it.
He complied with our request but promptly disappeared after we arrived at the site, which
evidently filled him with awe.
In general, women were forbidden to see or ‘touch’ the painting. The only females allowed
near it were those deemed to be ‘close up dead’ - in other words, old. This apparently
included Katharina.
Unlike in previous cases, we were not allowed to spread the copy of the painting out on
the cement floor of the homestead which offered the advantage of an even surface and
continue working on it. Instead, we were told to keep it rolled up in one of the special
metal containers we had brought with us.
We also had to promise the Aborigines not to show the copy to anyone, until we were on
our own ‘station’, when we arrived back home.

Journal of the Australasian Universities
Modern Languages Association, Christchurch, New Zealand, November. 1970
Extracts from a Review by T.G.H.Strehlow, University of Adelaide
FORTSCHRITT INS NIGHTS

Andreas Lommel
Zurich. Atlantis Verlag, 1969
DR Lommel first visited north-western Australia as a member of the 1938 Frobenius

Expedition. The party's researches were concentrated mainly on three tribes in the
Kimberley Division the Ungarinyin, the Worora, and the Unambal who were then living, in
Lommel's words, “in almost every imaginable state between undisturbed original culture and
complete absorption”. Towards the end of their stay members of the party received
glimpses of the Kurangara cult which was at that time being introduced from the interior
desert regions.
English readers will find the 1938 scientific material gathered by Lommel published in the
anthropological journal Oceania 1949 and 1950. After World War II Lommel, now Director
of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich, returned to his former field, accompanied by
his wife, Katharina Lommel. The latter, a gifted artist, was responsible for the fine copies
of aboriginal rock and bark paintings and decorated objects, and the excellent designs and
text illustrations, which made their joint volume Die Kunst des alten Australien (1989) one
of the most beautiful books ever produced on the aboriginal Australian art forms.
These publications contain all the scientific information and details of field work (also
most of the illustrations) on which Lommel's latest book has been factually based. But
whereas Lommel in his earlier writings had shown that he could evaluate aboriginal
Australian culture in the terminology of a critical ethnologist, and discuss, in cold sociological
terms, the aboriginals as members of a dying social order undermined by European
culture contact, ‘Fortschritt ins Nichts’ reveals a wholly new author: a European capable
of responding with deep emotion to the aesthetic properties of the aboriginal art forms,
filled with warm human understanding for the plight of dark men and women, whose
way of life and social order, beliefs and economic activities, culture and languages, were
all collapsing in a matter of a few decades after they had lost their rights to a land which
had been theirs for thousands of years. The clear-headed scientist responsible for the 1938
expedition account in 0ceania had become, in 1969, a warm-hearted humanitarian, with the
sensitivities of an artist and a poet. His very style, too, infused now with deep emotion,
had undergone, as it were, 'a sea-change into something rich and strange'.

Some passages in Fortschritt ins Nichts are among the most sensitive pieces of writing yet
done about the Australian scene and its people. A single sentence suffices to sum up the
impression made upon a European artist by the sign of one of the huge Wandjina paintings
in the north-west; 'From the horseshoe-shaped outline, the mouthless face, the eyes were
looking down upon us earnestly: here the soul of past millennia was gazing out of the
painting.' Again, there is deep pathos in Lommel's description of old men's visits to the
scenes of their youthful wanderings; ‘The old, lonely, solitary wanderers, who cannot bring
themselves to accept food relief from the stations, and prefer to die there slowly, traverse,
sick and hungry, the land of their fathers. They continue their attempts to freshen the outlines
of the rock paintings, in accordance with tradition. Their tortured, trembling lines can still
at times be discovered on the rocks: the colours are still fresh’. Similarly the strange, and
sometimes crude (to European minds) marital institutions and sexual habits of the dark
Australians, which had been described with cold exactness in the Oceania articles, are treated
with deep understanding in ‘Fortschritt ins Nichts’ : here, without changing the factual details,
Lommel shows how love, loyalty, jealousy, and murderous anger used to fill the love-lives of
the dark men and women in this region, and impel them to passionate action just as similar
feelings have motivated human beings everywhere since the dawn of human life.
Occasional inexactitudes of detail need not worry a reader looking for an accurate general
picture of aboriginal society. Here he will find a community of living men and women
attending to their daily chores, both new and traditional, and still drawing emotional satisfaction
and spiritual strength from the religious ties linking the visible world of their senses with
that supernatural world which was fused so intimately with their everyday experiences.
Aboriginal religion was based on a belief in the existence of indivisible, personal ties linking
men, nature, and the supernatural beings. Lommel gives many convincing pen sketches of
living figures (for instance, the 'poet Allan'): these are far removed from the nameless shadows,
vaguely labelled 'informants', that are normally mentioned by the anthropologists.
‘Fortschritt ins Nichts’ indicates Lommel's conviction that all European-Australian efforts to
‘assimilate’ the remnants of the indigenous dark population into white society can terminate
only in disaster for the latter.
He rightly emphasises the decline of the full-blood population, which had reached
near-genocidal proportions by 1938. He believes that in the end nothing will survive of the
languages, the legal norms, the social institutions, or the religious beliefs of the dark folk.

Modern Culture influences on the Aborigines
by Andreas Lommel, Oceania, September 1950
AS a member of the Frobenius Expedition sent to Australia in 1938, I had the opportunity
to collect some data about the influence of modern culture on the life of the aborigines in
the Kimberley Division in north-west Australia.
In Australia the influence seems to be mainly a psychological phenomenon. Psychological

changes can be distinguished before any change of the material culture has taken place,
and even after the beginning of material acculturation the consequences of the influence
of modern culture on the psychological sphere seem to be more significant for the process
of acculturation and assimilation.
As is generally known, the Australian aborigines have almost disappeared from the southern
part of the continent. A demographic record of the year 1933 gives the number of the
natives of Australia as 80,710, of whom 60,101 are recorded as fullbloods; 36,000 of these
are still living as nomads, whereas 23,000 live in a semi-civilised state in the surroundings
of white settlements.
Our research was concentrated mainly on three tribes in the Kimberley Division : The
Ungarinyin, the Worora and the Unambal. In the territory of the first tribe are the
Government Station, Munja on the bank of the Walcott Inlet and one station on the Sale
River. The second tribe lives concentrated in the vicinity of the Kunmunya Mission. The
Unambal inhabit the country farther north between the Prince Regent River and Cape
Voltaire. With the exception of an old and solitary dingo-trapper south of the Prince Regent
River the Unambal had no white settler in their territory, but they frequently visited the
Kunmunja Mission.
The members of these three tribes lived in almost every imaginable state between undisturbed
original culture and complete absorption. There were at least in the year 1938 still a few
older individuals who had never seen a white man and who knew of modern culture only
by hearsay, but they all had occasionally seen a plane circling over their country. On the
other hand, there were individuals at their station and the mission who had lived there
since their childhood and worked as stockboys and common labourers. In the small coastal
towns, Broome and Derby, aborigines and some half-castes worked as car-drivers and in
shops. They were completely absorbed in modern culture and had no contact with their
fellow tribesmen in the hinterland; but they exerted a strong influence on the occasional
visitors from Munja and Kunmunya.
There were, of course, numerous states between those extremes, but generally three groups

could be distinguished in the Kimberley Division. There were aborigines living in contact
with modern culture on the farm, the mission and the Government Station. These men,
stockboys and station-hands, wearing European clothes, had preserved fragments of their
language, but apparently little else. Their model was the American cowboy as they knew
him from Wild West films in the open-air cinemas of the coastal towns. They were unable
to live and nourish themselves in the bush and had never learnt how to hunt kangaroos
with spears or how to collect edible roots.
A second group lived as only temporary workers on the station. Its members knew modern
culture by contact, and they appreciated sugar, tea, tobacco and blankets. Half of the year
they lived in the bush as nomadic hunters like their ancestors, their economic life being
enriched only by a few matches, tools and clothes. They found themselves in a transition
phase and were the connecting link with the third group. This last was very small. It consisted
of some shy, timid, and mostly older, individuals who hid themselves carefully in the
rugged hinterland and avoided contact with modern culture. Economically, they kept
completely to the frame of their old nomadic culture; they used weapons of wood and
stone, and preserved a Stone Age way of life.
Even so the impact of modern culture made itself strongly felt in the third group. These
individuals who had never seen a white man were irritated and frightened by the rumours
they heard about him and his devices. Of these they knew the plane and, when living near
the sea, also the strange spectacle of a lighted steamboat passing by at night. As their economic
life remained unchanged, the influence of modern culture was restricted entirely to the
psychological sphere but was strong enough to change their life considerably.
Their economic conditions were favourable: kangaroos were abundant everywhere. The
Government regarded the country, which was of little use to white men, as a sort of native
reservation, and generally prohibited visiting adventurers, traders, and possible settlers from
entering it. Thus, contact could take place in an exceptionally friendly way at the mission
and the two stations, and those who preferred to remain in the hinterland could remain
there unmolested.
We had the opportunity to know for months members of all the three groups, those of the
third group belonging to the Unambal exclusively and to converse with them with the help
of indigenous interpreters and to become acquainted with their way of life. Everywhere the
result of the slightest contact seemed to be a falling birth-rate and a disintegrating social
organisation. In spite of favourable economic and hygienic conditions in the Kunmunya
Mission, the decline of the birth-rate was evident even here. Social organisation was tottering
also among the Unambal, who were the least influenced by contact with white men.
A few individuals of this tribe were living almost isolated from the rest, old and childless.
Only on a special occasion did they emerge from the hinterland and join their fellow tribesmen.

Such an occasion was the arrival of a new secret cult, into which the men of the Unambal
tribe had to be initiated. This cult was in full bloom among the Ungarinyin as well as the
Worora, whereas only a few Unambal men had been initiated so far. As I studied this cult
after having been admitted myself, I had the impression that besides reviving old traditions,
it was a synthesis of the aborigines’ old mythic conception of the universe with new elements
brought in, that it was an attempt to assimilate modern culture in a genuine way, and that
in this attempt the men of different stages of contact were united. Thus, besides the falling
birth-rate and the disintegrating social organisation, this cult seemed to be the most interesting
phenomenon resulting from the contact situation.
Wherever a closer contact takes place, a falling birth-rate may usually be ascribed to
introduced diseases or declining economic conditions. But here, things could not be
explained that way. It appeared that the news of modern culture alone was sufficient to
destroy the aborigines’ concept of the universe. All these rumours about the white men
who looked pale like the spirits of the dead, of their ships, motor-cars and aeroplanes
seemed to disturb these primitives deeply and produce a remarkable effect on their
cultural and biological existence.
Psychic conditions seem to effect their physical well-being far more than we would consider
normal. The aborigines maintain that, if we translate in our own terminology what they
said, their reproductive abilities depend not only on their physical well-being but on their
psychic balance as well. Many conversations with aborigines suggested that rumours and
tales of modern culture, as well as a merely superficial contact with it, destroy not only their
concept of the universe but also upset their psychic balance enough to diminish their
reproductive abilities. The missionary of Kunmunya, the late Rev. J. B. Love, who had
concentrated around his mission almost the whole Worora of over 200 persons, clearly saw
that it was dying out fast : only about one-tenth of the whole population was under 20 years.
There were, however, no discernible material reasons for this state of affairs. Economic
conditions were excellent and the mission kept a close eye on sanitary conditions. The
missionary talked things over with the men and several times did so in my presence. It
became clear that the aborigines regarded a special psychic disposition, which they
called a ‘dream,’ as the cause of pregnancy.
Intimations to have more frequent intercourse with their wives remained meaningless to
them. There, in the mission, the problem of ignorance of physical paternity did not exist.
The physical facts had been brought to their knowledge by discussions with white persons,
but still they regarded those facts from a different point of view. To them the physical act
of generation was more or less insignificant ; the accent was on a psychic condition a
‘dream’ which they regarded as being of biological importance concerning their procreative
disposition. Men of the hinterland who had almost no contact with whites referred to those
‘dreams’ as the one and only, or at least the main, reason of paternity.

Those who had talked about these questions with white persons frequently still insisted on
the ‘dream’ as indispensable but admitted that intercourse had also a function. Moreover,
they always were ready to state that things might be quite different amongst white persons
and animals.
These ‘dreams’ involve all the mythical and totemic ideas. The first and creative beings of
their Genesis transformed themselves, ‘dreaming’ again and again, into the animals and
plants, which they were creating. One of these beings is a mythical snake called Ungud,
which represents the water. From that snake originates an anthropomorphic called
Wandjina, representing rain and fertility. In the depth of wells, which resist the heat of the
summer, these two beings are incessantly creating so-called ‘spirit children’, souls of
children to be born.
To beget a child a man has to find such a soul or ‘spirit child’ first. He finds it in a particular
dream in which the name of the spirit child, containing the vital essence of the future child,
comes to his conscious mind. The aborigines maintain that to make such a ‘dream’ possible
sleep must not be too heavy. The name of the ‘spirit child’ goes first to the heart of the
dreamer and later into his head; he then is thinking like a white man, that is, he becomes
fully conscious of the name. A man lacking strength either in his heart or in his head cannot
keep the name and therefore cannot pass on that ‘spirit child’ to his wife. He then is incapable
of begetting a child and will try to borrow a spirit child’s name from a medicine-man.
The aborigines declare that such ‘child-dreams’ have become very rare to-day. Those who
work on stations say that heavy work exhausts them so that their sleep becomes too heavy.
They cannot catch the name of the ‘spirit child’ any more. Those of the hinterland say that
all their dreams are too much troubled by visions of the white man, of aeroplanes and
ships. So they always dream of these things and have no ‘child dreams’ any more.
Taking into account the extraordinary sensibility of the aborigines, we may assume that for
physical paternity a psychic disposition might well be indispensable for them, and we may
as well consider it as justified their reasoning about the causes of their falling birth-rates.
The disturbance caused by approaching modern culture by direct contact or even by
rumous may be sufficient to upset their emotional balance in such a degree that the psychic
disposition necessary for the physical act of generation will not be attained any more.
In a similar but less distinct way modern culture may act on other primitive peoples, whereas
reasoning may not be as clear as in this case. All the aborigines are inclined to regard
misadventures and accidents as the result of some magic action against them. The psychological
treatment of maladies or injuries is more important than the medical one. The magical
action of the possible enemy has to be counteracted by the magic of the medicine-man.
A group lives under the same fear as the individual. For instance, lack of success in hunting

during several consecutive days may lead a group to believe itself to be the victim of an
evil spell. Heavy depression and apathy will render it incapable of any further action. Here
then the medicine-man’s function begins. He will sing magical songs with the men for a
whole night and hypnotise them into a cheerful and self-reliant mood. The psychic
pre-disposition of the aborigines makes the medicine-man a necessity. He is the centre of
their social organism. He keeps this position even at the stations or the mission: there life
offers so many puzzling questions that the spiritual leadership by a strong character is as
necessary as in the bush. But a genuine medicine-man may be helpless in this new and
strange atmosphere.
Thus he sometimes is replaced by a younger man who speaks some English and is experienced
in the ways of the whites. This advantage, however, may be paid for by a loss of those
subtler qualities which distinguish a real medicine-man. It is not personality alone that
makes a medicine-man; tradition and circumstances require that he should undergo certain
special psychic experiences in order to be able to act. These alone guarantee the qualities
necessary to himself and to his fellow tribesmen, and it is here that the influence of the culture
makes itself felt: the psychic experiences which give a medicine-man his power are no
more attainable because the whole psychic atmosphere of the natives is disturbed.
Further, as soon as the medicine-man loses the ability to function as the centre of the
social organism, the organism dissolves. The psychic experiences were described to us
very exactly and mostly referred to as ‘dreams’. Informants were both older and younger
men. Some of them claimed to have had these experiences themselves, others modestly
admitted that they related experiences of others only. One Unambal and one Worora man
insisted on having undergone those experiences themselves and related the ‘dreams’ in
their own version.
The decisive experience or ‘dream’ is preceded by many others which are regarded as a
good omen. In them the dreamer sees himself back to his origin, in the water. He sees
many appearances, which are related to water, as water plants and trees growing at the
riverside. The decisive experience may plunge the dreamer in a sort of coma, which may
last for several days. During this the dreamer feels as though he were diving into the
deepest water. There he communicates with the first creative being: the Ungud-snake, who
endows him with special psychic powers. After these psychic experiences, a new medicine-man
is for some time the disciple of some older ones who teach him the practical tricks of the
routine work. Then he is regarded as ready.
The decisive experiences are described as follows : The soul of the man who is going to be
a medicine-man goes away from him. His body is lying there asleep. It is a heavy sleep,
and nobody dares to wake him up even if this sleep should last for several days. The soul
goes far away to the place from whence it originated. There in the depth it finds a brilliantly
lighted cave in which two snakes are copulating and incessantly engendering ‘spirit children’.

Many of them unite with the soul of the dreamer who thus becomes richer and stronger in
psychic powers than common men. Other descriptions speak of a medicine which the man
receives in the depth. It is believed that this looks like transparent crystals. They penetrate
him through his shoulder, his navel or his penis. The strength which is given is then located
in his belly.
The descriptions of the decisive experiences never differentiate between physical and the
psychic existence. Generally the aborigines speak of how 'he' dives into the water, receives
the medicine and rises to the surface of the water again. Only after very exact questioning
it becomes clear that the body is lying asleep on the ground, whereas ‘he’ means the soul
which goes down to meet the Ungud-snake. For the aborigines there is no difference
between an experience during a dream and an experience in real life. Both spheres have
the same reality, and they are unable to separate them.
We may call this decisive experience a communication with the subconscious. The efficiency
of the medicine-man depends on his ability to communicate with his subconscious whenever
he wants to do so. As soon as the psychic balance of the aborigines is disturbed, the abilities
of the medicine-man seem to vanish and he is unable to function. If the disturbance is deep
enough, the development also of new medicine-men may be precluded.
It seems impossible for the younger generation to attain the necessary decisive psychic
experiences which make a medicine-man. There are other psychic experiences which
belong to the traditional abilities of a medicine-man. At present these seem to become rare
events, whereas in normal times in the past they seem to have been rather common. ‘Flying’ is
one of these experiences.
The medicine-man is believed to be able to send his soul away over long distances. The
soul sees everything that is going on in foreign countries and returns and relates it to him.
Generally, even normal dreams are regarded as journeys of the soul, and visions of the
dreamer are interpreted as adventures during these journeys. So the dreams of the
medicine-man can be regarded as particularly impressive and colourful psychic experiences.
Sometimes such dreams are dreamt collectively.
Several men led by a medicine-man fall in trance and have the same dream together at the
same time. During such a dream he destroys the soul of one of the men and enriches his
own psychic power by the sacrifice. We do not know the real nature of these ‘flying’
dreams and the ‘sacrifice’. We may regard it as a sort of transfer of psychic energy from one
individual to another, the loss of energy causing the death of the giver.
The fact that such experiences are so far unknown to us does not necessarily mean that
such an experience cannot exist elsewhere. In August 1938 I was told of such a ‘sacrifice’
by older Unambal men as follows (as usual the narrators made no difference between events

during dreams or states of trance and those of outward reality : they told their tales
without modification, and it was left to me to distinguish between the different states
of consciousness) :
“The men sit down with the medicine-man and sing. The medicine-man takes a great snake
out of the water and the men sit themselves astride on it. The snake flies with them through
the air. After some time they arrive in a foreign land. They sit down around the snake. The
medicine-man takes a stone knife and kills one of the men. He cuts him into pieces and
gives those pieces to the snake. The other men sit around quietly and look on as the snake
swallows the pieces. Then they themselves also eat of the flesh of their fellow man. The
medicine-man cleans the bones of the killed one and lays them on the earth.
He lays them in the opposite way from what they should be laid in natural order. He lays
the thigh bones at the shoulder and vice versa. Then the other men return riding on the
flying snake; but the medicine-man remains with the skeleton. He sings magical songs
and the bones are re-covered with flesh. The killed one comes to life. The medicine-man
produces a second snake out of his navel and the two men ride home on this one. After
that all the men wake abruptly and do not know at the moment what has happened to
them. Only later they remember faintly all the events during their sleep. The sacrificed man
then dreams of a snake and dies in a few days.”
At present, these powers and phenomena are ceasing to be manifested. Always when
mentioning the medicine-men and their psychic power the aborigines emphasise the fact
that really great medicine-men do not exist any longer. The medicine-men themselves
agree modestly with this opinion and point out that without great medicine-men the
aborigines are going to vanish.
With approaching civilisation the psychic balance of these men is so much upset that they
are unable to have the same psychic experiences as their ancestors. To day, as they
become unable to 'dream', they are inclined to regard the stories as reports of events in the
real world. They expect their medicine-man to perform ‘diving, flying and sacrificing’ in a
visible and material way. Civilisation leads them towards a misinterpretation of their
original abilities.
In north-west Australia, for example, the white doctor nearly always appears in an aeroplane
at the settlements in case of an emergency. These planes were seen also by those aborigines
who in their lifetime never met a white man. They know from accounts of others that the
white men are able to fly. Now they expect their own medicine-men to do the same.
Moreover, the latter, believing that the medicine-men of old times could fly in reality, feel
themselves inferior.
When the story of the sacrifice was related to me, it was at once compared with an account

of a medical operation in a hospital at Broome where some aborigines from the Kunmunya
mission apparently had been present. The white medicine-man, I was told, could make a
man fall asleep deeply, open his body without him feeling any pains. He could close the
wound again and wake him up. Afterwards the victim would be without any knowledge
of what had happened to him during his sleep.
A New Cult. Besides the falling birth-rate, the destruction of the psychic atmosphere, and
the biological and social changes caused by contact with modern culture, there is a cultural
phenomenon of more positive aspect brought about by contact. A new cult is migrating
from one tribe to the other, combining old features with new ones. It seems to be a synthesis
of the old and the new way of life, a synthesis in genuine aboriginal style.
Possibly, dances and perhaps also cults migrating from tribe to tribe belong, as a structural
element, to the original culture of Australia. This migration seems to have connected tribes
with each other and to have conveyed new elements. This was obvious at least in the case
of the cult we observed in three tribes of northern Kimberley, where it showed considerable
strength and influence.
Coming to a tribe, this cult is attended by all the individuals with utmost concentration. The
traditional mythical ideas are not impaired. On the contrary, the new cult absorbs and
revitalises them. It is like a psychic wave, for at indeterminate intervals a new one may
appear and flow from tribe to tribe. This idea occurred to me when I learned that the cult
in question has been preceded by another one now out of date. Something of the nature
of the processes of assimilation and acculturation became understandable by observing this
cult. Its advent was known long before it actually arrived; people were psychologically
prepared for it, and its arrival brought about a new situation heralding possible developments.
Modern culture is received by these primitives not as something

real but as a mythical ghost or a figure. This figure is a personification
of all the features of modern culture known to the aborigines. At
the same time it retains features of the old mythical ghosts. Thus
modern culture is assimilated to a certain extent to the old ideas
in imagination. In this respect the new cult unites half-castes, full-bloods
on stations, as well as the folk of the desolate hinterland, and so creates
a new race consciousness.
The symbols of one of the spreading cults were wooden slabs of

roughly Tjurunga form painted red and yellow. The only thing we
could find out about them was that they were connected with
emu meat. The cult in-question was no longer alive, and people
talked freely about it and offered the tablets for a low price.
Another cult called Kurrangara was coming slowly from the south. Tjurunga

The Ungarinjin were already initiated and most of the Worora were, while some of them
and the greater part of the Unambal were still awaiting admission. Secrecy and awe penetrated
everything in connection with this new and powerful cult. Special initiation was necessary
also for us and was offered only after months of daily contact. We were initiated into the
Kurrangara cult at a place called Wurewuri, which was not too far away from the modest
hut of the old trapper south of the Prince Regent River. As the cult had to take place in the
vicinity of white settlements, this place was the one nearest to the Unambal and all the
dances and initiations were celebrated there. The members carefully explained to us that
the slabs were endowed with an enormous power, a sort of poison with which the initiated
had to be filled gradually by rubbing his body with smaller slabs lest he would die. When fully
initiated a member radiated this power and had to clean himself carefully after each ceremony.
Aborigine dance and initiation. Photo Andreas Lommel 1938
Without this precaution he would kill all persons who were excluded from membership.
After being initiated properly, we had the opportunity to watch the initiation of some
Unambal men from the hinterland who had travelled to this place for several days with the
only purpose of participating in the new power. The dances and the initiation ceremony
arranged for them was, though somewhat more detailed, basically the same as that which
we had gone through.
The old trapper had never been initiated, and the cult as well as the slabs were kept away from
him though not very strictly. The whole cult was hidden absolutely, however, from the
missionary of the Kunmunja mission, Mr. Love, who had taught the aborigines not to mention
in his presence any sinful subject such as magic or sex. He thus had barred himself from any
deeper knowledge (though he was an expert as far as their material culture was concerned).

Examining slabs. Photo Andreas Lommel 1938
At the Kurrangara dancing ground at Wurewuri were assembled Unambal men with
Ungarinyin from Sale River Station and Worora from Kunmunya mission; the latter spoke
to us about the cult only after the repeated warning not to tell anything to the missionary.
With regard to their reactions to the cult, which was quite new to them, the Unambal were
especially interesting; they were deeply impressed and absorbed. The Ungarinyin, who
had known of the cult for some time, handed it on to their neighbours, acting as pre-emi-
nent men with a certain benevolent superiority.
Dr. H. Petri, the leader of our expedition, studied the Kurrangara cult in the Ungarinyin territory,
whereas I found an opportunity to do so chiefly with Unambal informants. Comparing our
notes later, we found that we had covered two different aspects of the cult, namely the full
development of it among the Ungarinjin and its initial phase among the Unambal, where
its relation to the preceding cult seemed to be comparatively clearly visible. The
Kurrangara myth as told by Unambal was linked with the myth of the preceding cult,
which, however, was already out of date for at least one generation, as only older people
could give any information about it. The slabs which were the symbol of the older cult
were said to have come from the home of a ghost in the north named Nguniai. Nguniai was
regarded as inventor of many tools and laws, and even the invention of circumcision was
ascribed to him. He has human appearance; only at his elbows, long and sharp knives stand out.

With these bone knives he cuts the slabs out of trees and ornaments them. Nguniai lives in
a big house erected on four poles. Another ghost called Vaybalma steals the slabs from time
to time and runs away with them. The persecuting Nguniai has considerable difficulties in
finding the thief’s track on the sand; he can only see it on hard stone. This is because in the
world of the ghosts everything is contrary to things in the human world. Thus the thief
avoids stony ground and after a successful flight gives the slabs to the men.
The more modern cult is connected with the older one by its myth. Tjanba, the ghost
producing slabs for this cult, is a son of Nguniai. He migrated from north to south and is
believed to live in the southern desert today, from where the Kurrangara slabs are coming.
The Kurrangara slabs follow exactly the way of the slabs of the older cult mentioned above
only in the opposite direction. Thus they will naturally one day reach the region inhabited by
Nguniai. The moment Nguniai sees the first of his son’s slabs he will stop producing them
himself and then, the myth concludes, life on earth will come to an end.
In the myth of Tjanba, some of the characteristics of this ghost are borrowed from modern
culture : his house is of corrugated iron and below it grow poisonous weeds. Tjanba is able
to impart the hitherto unknown diseases of leprosy and syphilis by means of little sticks
which have lain in those weeds overnight. Men who possess Kurrangara slabs are able to
infect other people. Tjanba hunts with a rifle and ornaments his slabs with iron tools. To
distribute his slabs to men (some of his slabs are stolen, others he himself sends out) he
uses aeroplanes, motor cars and steamers. When showing the slabs to his fellow ghosts, he
asks them for tea, sugar and bread.
Following the myth, the modern cult demands exuberant feasts with tea, sugar, bread and
as much beef as possible but no meat of any indigenous animal. The cult places have to be
in the vicinity of stations. The cult language is pidgin-English. The cult is directed by a
‘boss,’ the slabs are stored away by a ‘clerk,’ the feasts are announced by a ‘mailman,’ and
order and discipline during them is maintained by some specially appointed ‘pickybas’ (from
police-boys).
The Kurrangara cult, which absolutely excludes women, intensifies the cultural life of the
aborigines and temporarily brings back something similar to the psychic atmosphere of the
old time, though in a somewhat sinister version. The former medicine-man is replaced by
the ‘boss.’ The introduction into the cult replaces the former initiation and makes the deepest
impression on individuals, who at this moment believe themselves to be face to face with
a power that at will distributes life and death.
The ‘boss’ has the power to kill and to heal, to infect other people with, or protect his
adherents against, leprosy and syphilis. His methods are essentially the same as those of
the old medicine-men; only the symbols have changed. It is now no longer the snake-Ungud,
but the Kurrangara slab which incorporates life and death. Those slabs sometimes bigger

than a man are painted red, black and white. The person under an evil spell sees, dreaming,
how his Kurrangara slab disintegrates or becomes shabby, whereas the dream announcing
recovery shows the slab fresh and newly painted. The water symbol maintains its salutary
meaning: the slab in danger is cooled or cleaned in the water.
The cult is remarkable as an expression of some assimilation of elements of modern culture

as the aborigines conceive them. At the same time, it is the expression of a change in their
cultural state. This becomes especially clear when we consider the fact that time has also
changed its aspect in the new myth of the Kurrangara cult. Hitherto there was no concept
of a future. There was only an ‘eternal dream time’ uniting the beginning of the world and
the present. The past was more important than the present, the latter being only a reflection
of the former. Now the past is fading away and the present derives its importance from a
future with a menacing end of the world.
The new conception of time clearly shows the new psychic condition of the aborigines: the
preponderance of the subconscious (expressed in the importance of the past and the ‘eternal
dream time’) gives way to a stronger degree of consciousness which has arisen through
their altered relation to time and environment. They now are far more conscious of their
actual living conditions, as well as of themselves. One can note the faint beginning of a
feeling of racial homogeneity.
This feeling could, under different circumstances, be the beginning of a new cultural activity
but, in the circumstances, it does not hold any promise for the future. The future is felt to
be extremely dark, and a deep melancholy and apathy are salient characteristics of the present
attitude. This attitude finds its artistic expression in the Kurrungara myth and dances an
expression darkened still more by additional mythological features linked with the cult.
The Unambal informants, who were deeply impressed by the approaching end of the
world, told me that this is going to be announced by the arrival of different Kurrangara
slabs sent out by Tjanba’s wife. As soon as these slabs are distributed the social order will
be completely reversed: women will take the place of men; they will arrange the feasts and
hand on the slabs, whereas the men will gather edible roots, without being allowed to
participate in the feasts. My informants used to speak of these inevitable events with serious
apprehension and to link them with another cult, which they expected soon to arrive from
the north, but of which some already claimed to know the essentials.
This newest cult was called Maui, and despite the fact that it was to come from the north it
was regarded as something very similar to the cult of Tjanba’s wife. Maui also was associated
with venereal diseases, and I was told that its poison made these diseases spread.
Kurrangara and the approaching Maui were both regarded as dangerous and they both
made the aborigines concentrate on the imminent future, which was believed to be the end
of everything alive.

An eschatological myth may have been part of the aborigines’ traditions, but now the
approach of modern culture with so many fateful elements accompanying it certainly
makes the aborigines concentrate on the end of the world.
ANDREAS LOMMEL.

Rock Painting Sites in The Kimberley Region

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Rock Painting Sites in The Kimberley Region

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Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region

Descriptions and Copies of the Paintings by Katharina and Andreas

An Account of an Expedition by the Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunde,Munich, to the

Studying and Copying Rock Paintings Pages 12 - 23

The Rock Paintings of North-West Australia - Pages 24 - 25

The Wandjina Figures Pages 26 - 28

The Small-Figure Rock Paintings in the Bradshaw Style Pages 29 - 30

The Rock Painting Site at Ngungunda Pages 31 - 36

The Rock Painting Site at Molcott Pages 37 - 41

The Rock Painting Site at Aulen Pages 42 - 49

The Rock Painting Site at Wonalirri Pages 50 - 61

The Rock Painting Site at Sundron Pages 62 - 65

Journal of the Australasian Universities Pages 66 - 67

Modern Culture influences on the Aborigines Pages 68 - 80

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 2

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 3

Andreas listening to the interpretations of the Wonalirrie site in 1955

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 4

In 1990 Robert A. Hefner III with his son Charles

Robert A. Hefner III and John Robinson at a Wandjina cathedral gallery

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 5

In December of 2002 Damon de Laszlo, chairman of the Bradshaw Foundation, visited

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 6

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 7

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 8

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 9

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 10

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 11

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 12

All these sites featured paintings in the so-called

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 13

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 14

Katharina tracing Wandjina from the rock face

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 15

Katharina transferring tracing to canvas on the concrete floor of the

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 16

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 17

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 18

Large reclining Wandjina figure

Snake with three horns

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 19

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 21

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 22

A few days later to avoided the wet season

Today one can reach Gibb River from

(right) Bushman wagon with wooden wheels

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 23

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 24

This first-over German expedition to north-west Australia amassed an extensive collection

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 25

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 26

Big Wandjina figure copied by Katharina

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 27

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 29

In 2000 Grahame L. Walsh wrote a third book on the Bradshaw paintings.Bradshaws:

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 30

On the path leading to the painting, to the east

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 31

Rock painting site located in a west-facing shelter formed by a single,

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 32

Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region Page 33

Snake with eggs (left)

Coiled snake and human (below)