Post on 14-Apr-2017
• Aboriginal culture is the OLDEST SURVIVING CULTURE in the world, daAng back 60,000 years.
• Stone age culture (no metal use or wriIen language, no ciAes or stone structures) remained unAl European colonizaAon began in 1788.
• Approximately 400 disAnct tribes, with 250 disAnct languages (600 – 800 dialects) inhabited Australia.
• Forcibly evicted from their lands, Aboriginals worked on ranches for no pay; approximately 100,000 children were removed from their parents to be “educated” in ciAes and trained to become laborers and house servants unAl the 1970s.
• Aboriginals did not receive full voAng rights unAl 1967. • The last tribe was “reseIled” (removed from their ancestral lands) in 1984.
Young aboriginal family, c. 1935
Aboriginal girls being “civilized” at Momomona Mission, c. 1914
“To get an insight into us – [the Warlpiri people of the Tanami Desert] – it is necessary to understand something about our major religious belief, the Jukurrpa. The Jukurrpa is an all-‐embracing concept that provides rules for living, a moral code, as well as rules for interacAng with the natural environment. The philosophy behind it is holisAc – the Jukurrpa provides for a total, integrated way of life. It is important to understand that, for Warlpiri and other Aboriginal people living in remote Aboriginal seIlements, The Dreaming isn’t something that has been consigned to the past but is a lived daily reality. We, the Warlpiri people, believe in the Jukurrpa to this day.”
-‐ Jeannie Herbert Nungarrayi, member of Walpiri of Northern Territory
Marrkirdi Jukurrpa “Wild Bush Plum Dreaming”, 2003, Molly Tasman Napurruria Warlpiri
• “DreamAme” is a very poor equivalent of the meaning of the many words used by the many Aboriginal groups to describe their belief system, including their cosmology, their land-‐based mythology, their rules of morality, ethics and relaAonships. It’s not just a dream.
• The belief system of the Aboriginal peoples layers myths and narraAves over the land features they move across every day.
• When we non-‐Aboriginals enjoy or learn about Aboriginal art, we are only seeing the “first level” as deeper levels are restricted to the people making the work.
• Dreamings were created by the Dreaming Ancestors known as Creator Beings, who walked all over Australia, bringing into existence geographic features big and small, such as hills, waterholes, and springs. Ancestral paths that crisscross the conAnent in a loose grid-‐like paIern were also believed to have been given by the Creator Beings. The “pathways”, as is typical in Aboriginal culture, have more than one meaning layered upon it: kinship paIerns, for ex.
• Each disAnct group has their unique set of dreamings, as the land is unique. Nonetheless, different dreamings within a group may overlap as the same land feature may be used in different ways in a story or artwork.
• In other words, the artworks of the Aboriginals serve as their history, as their religion, as maps, and as reminders of their place in the world.
• Mimi spirits are depicted here – the first CreaAon Ancestors to paint on rock, which they taught to the residents.
• Ubirr, Kakadu NaAonal Park
• X-‐ray views are common in art from this region.
• Provide templates for all human and non-‐human acAvity, social behavior, ethics and morality, whether the Dreamings are spoken, painted or danced.
• In Aboriginal history, things don’t happen in TIME, they happen in PLACE.
• Encode maps of a specific geographic region, including the locaAon of water, pathways, and geographic features.
• These features are ooen considered the result of the acts of the Creator Beings, which is their mythology.
• Important informaAon regarding micro-‐environments is also encoded in the Dreaming narraAves: certain plants, how to best survive in a specific environment, which animals exist there, etc.
• NegaAve stories of the ancestors gives the people warnings about the vices of human behavior, including disobedience, lust, greed, the ill-‐treatment of women and girls, and more.
• CreaAon is seen as an eternal and ongoing process in these narraAves – Ameless.
Ngalyipi Jukurrpa, “Bush Vine Dreaming”, Myra Nungarrayi, Warlpiri, 2003
Diarrhoea Dreaming, 1994, Ralph
Nganjmirra, Kunwinjku
• From Western Arnheim land – like work from Kakadu Park, shows x-‐ray style.
• Rarrk – cross-‐hatching paIerns unique to clans
• Surface layer = recognize animal or map
• Deeper meanings for those iniAated into the community
• Deepest layer understood only by the arAst and seniors in the community
• Pigments on bark paper (tradiAonal style)
“The Pintubi Nine” 1984 Last nomads brought in from desert
Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri in New York City for His exhibit at Salon 94
hIps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lMEr1EDurU
• New Guinea (like Australia) has been populated for 60,000 years.
• Solomon Islands were first inhabited ca. 30,000 years ago from New Guinea – the first expansion of humans into the Pacific unAl the movement of Austronesian-‐language speakers ca. 4000 BCE
• Leading theory regarding Polynesian people is that they migrated from China to Taiwan c. 10,000 BCE.
• From Taiwan they spread to Philippines c. 5000 BCE, New Guinea, Fiji, TahiA, Hawaii, New Zealand and finally, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) c. 300 – 400 AD
• The people of this culture are thought to be the common ancestor of Polynesia, Micronesia and some of Melanisia
• C.1600 – 500 BCE • More than 200 sites
discovered – mostly disAncAve poIery shards
• Maori are part of the Polynesian cultural group; many similariAes between their history/lifestyle/culture and that of other island naAons.
• Central to the culture is the concept of mana and tapu:
• Mana – supernatural power tha moves within and through people, Ame and objects.
• Tapu – protecAon through the codified rules that govern social status, inherited roles (chief, navigator, warrior, etc.), community and presAge.
• As a result, geneaology is a criAcal component of everyday life because it has such a broad impact.
• Found in New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, TahiA, Fiji, and Hawaii, among other islands.
• Known by various names such as: Siapo, Ngatu, Ahu, Kapa, or Masi
• Made from stripped and beaten inner bark of mulberry; occasionally from breadfruit or banyan trees
• Formerly used for clothing; now used for ceremonial purposes (birth, marriage, etc.) or for purely decoraAve funcAon.
Samoan siapo
hIps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRVLQXXb1cY
• SeIled ca. 600 – 800 AD
• Small island formed from 3 underwater volcanoes (14 x 7 miles)
• Nearest inhabited neighbor is Pitcairn Island (1200 miles away); nearest conAnent is South America (2182 miles)
• Polynesian people lived there (related to Maori) • Best known for Moai – statues made of volcanic tuff (type
of volcanic igneous rock) that represent ancestral chiefs, believed descended from gods.
• Other arAfacts include wooden human figures and petroglyphs
• TradiAon of making moai was already in decline when Europeans arrived in 1722, and died out by 1800s.
• Ecosystem taxed by populaAon increases, but especially presence of Polynesian rats, which helped deforest the island, and eliminate over 30 species of plants and animals.
• Average height 13 feet, but largest is 70 feet
• Commissioned by individual or group, then created by expert team who carved in quarry, then “walked” statues to final site
• All face inland, even though located at edge of coastline
• By mid-‐1800s, all were in disrepair; have been restored by archaeologists
• Some wear “hats” of Pukao, a soo red stone;
• large ones have bodies buried in the earth
hIps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5YR0uqPAI8
• Prehistoric stone sculpture c. 1500 BCE
Possible Echidna, leo and cassowary head, right
• Created between 1500 – 1800
• Made by Inyai-‐Ewa tribe
• Each man had a figure which held his own personal “helping spirit” to aid him in hunts.
• These items were collected by Michael C. Rockefeller…
• Son of millionaire and former NY governor Nelson Rockefeller
• Traveled to New Guinea to collect art
• On final trip to Aswat people in 1961, his canoe was swamped offshore; aoer 2 days clinging to it he told his companion that he could swim the 12 miles to shore.
Sawos ceremonial board
• Rockefeller was never seen again.
• Did he drown? • Or was he captured by the Aswat tribe, who may have killed him?
• And who may have eaten him?
• Evidence suggests the laIer.