226-Smith 1991 FemaleArtist

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Female Artists:The Unrecognized Factor in Sacred Rock Art Production

Claire E. SmithSacred rock art sites and, occasionally, rock art sites ingeneral have traditionally been associated with maleceremonial activity. The basic contention has been thatthe execution of a c r ~ rock art could only be carried outby initiated persons and, as initiated persons wereinvariably male, it has been assumed that only malespainted sacred rock art (see Spencer and Gillen1899[1968]:614; Elkin 1933:462; Love 1936:24; Capell1939:388; Schulz 1956:42; Crawford 1968:37; Edwardsand Guerin 1969:15; Gould 1969:154; Bagglin andMullins 1987:26; Walsh 1988:14).This view is based upon the ubiquitous assumptionthat women and children are the uninitiated members ofAustralian Aboriginal societies who are denied fullaccess to the religious sphere (see Roheim 1933:207;Bates 1938:28,125; Elkin 1939:xxx; Warner 1958:26;Maddock 1982:139). Frequently the term sacred isapplied solely to rituals from which women wereexcluded and, as Berndt (1981: 188) points out, the very .presence of a woman can be taken to indicate the secularor profane nature of an activity. This notion imbues thestudy of Aboriginal ritual communication from theVictorian era to the present day.When the existence of women's secret ceremonieshas been acknowledged it has been assumed that, as theonly province of religion open to women was thatconcerning fears or anxieties, women's ceremoniesrevolved around such issues as 'love magic' orphysiological crises. The consensus view is expressed byWhite (1978:40) in her assertion that women'sceremonies dealt with women's concerns but that men'sceremonies dealt with the concerns of society as a whole.This view is epitomised by Maddock (1982:139) in hisclassic dichotomy between the 'broad, cohesive andimpersonal themes' of men's cults and the 'narrow,divisive and personal interests' of women's.Such a view has recently been challenged by anumber of researchers whose work has been conductedwithin the growing theoretical interest in the study ofgender that emerged in the 'seventies and 'eighties. In

particular, Berndt (1981), Bell (1983) and Hamilton(1980) have stressed the rights, responsibilities andpowers invested in Aboriginal women.

Bell's (1983) Daughters of the Dreamingdemonstrates a breadth of female ceremonial activity inCentral Australia That includes the painting of sacredobjects, the maintenance of sacred stone arrangements,the decoration and painting of ritual poles, the ritual useof sign language, and the execution of sand drawings andbody painting.Bell's (1983:182) contention that female ceremoniallife in Central Australia has the same mythological basisas men's is supported by Hamilton (1980: 15) and Layton(1986:45), both of whom contend that women and mendevelop different aspects and events within the samenarrative structure relating to ancestral traditions. Anartistic expression of this may be seen in the content ofrecent Western Desert acrylic paintings (see Andersonand Dussart 1988:122). The argument that both sexesshare a religion in common is also supported by Kaberry(1939:190) for the Kimberley.Kaberry's (1939:208;228) assertion that both menand woinen in this region share ritual responsibilitiesinvolved in the increase of species is consistent withPiddington's (1932:391) observation that increaseceremonies for nalgoo in Wonguru country near CapeBossut were carried out entirely by women 'under thedirection of men' . This sharing between the sexes ofresponsibility for species perceived as critical to groupsurvival has also been recorded by Sharp (1934:30) forthe Yir Yiront in Cape York, and by Hamilton (1980: 15)for Central Australia.The fulfilment of such responsibilities is obviouslyinconsistent with the narrow and particularistic focus ofwomen's ceremonies proferred by researchers such asMaddock. In addition to this, I would argue thatwomen's ceremonies that do focus upon sex, procreationand/or fertility have considerable import for society atlarge, not solely for women. The secret ceremonies ofboth men and w_omen benefit society as a whole through


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46 Rock Art and Prehistoryestablishing economic and spiritual security for all. It isalso clear that in many parts of Australia men haveceremonies concerned with 'love magic' (see Spencerand Gillen 1899[1968]:549; Strehlow 1964:54; Love1936:99; Bemdt and Bemdt 1982:108) and this, in fact,seems to be one of the least dichotomous aspects ofAboriginal ceremonial life.Reassessment of women's role in ceremonial activityleads naturally to reassessment of women's role as rockartists. If women have a subset of Aboriginal culture ofhitherto unrecognized significance, are they not alsolikely to have responsibility for a subset of paintings, andof rock paintings, within that culture?This is the case in the Victoria River district, whereDarrell Lewis and Deborah Rose (pers. comm.) weretaken to several women's sites from which men were

either restricted or subject to various restrictions. Thesesites contain art which is primarily figurative and not readily distinguishable in style from that of other rock artsites, includmg men's sites. Lewis and Rose (1988:65)contend that most rock art sites in the Victoria Riverdistrict are foci of Dreaming power and knowledge andthat control of sites is implemented through gender andage restrictions upon access to information, or to thesites themselves, or to both.There is very little retouching of paintings in thisregion. Most of the rock art is regarded by Aboriginalpeople as a product of the Dreaming. It is the Dreaming- not the work of men and women (Lewis and Rose1988:53). There is, therefore, no way of discovering whodid the art from the Aborigines themselves.A little to the east, at Yingalarri waterhole onWilleroo Station, Josephine Flood, Robin Frost andBruno David have recently been working, in conjunctionwith the linguist Francesca Merlan, with a number ofWardaman men and women. These Aboriginal informantsstate that both men and women had and have the right toretouch certain paintings. At site 1 they make nodistinction between paintings which could be retouchedby men and those which could be retouched by women.An interesting aspect of the work done by this teamis the nature of the questions posed. Flood asked a seriesof questions as follows:

Q: Who can paint?A: Anyone.Q: Can men paint?A: Yes, anyone.Q: Can women paint?A: Yes, anyone.The principal informant was an Aboriginal man

called Blucher and, a little later (the existence of femalerock artists was not a primary focus of the questioning),

Flood turned from Blucher to particular Aboriginalwomen in the group to ask them if they had a right topaint. The answers were affirmative, though not all hada right to paint at that particular site.

During the same interview Blucher accosted a femalechild who touched a painting, warning her that this actioncould cause sickness. It would appear, then, that at leastsome of the paintings at this site are considered potentand potentially dangerous. I would argue that this is amore accurate measure of the sacredness of rock art thanthe mere exclusion of females from a site.

Whilst children of both sexes were prohibited fromtouching the paintings at this site, a woman visiting fromthe adjacent territory of the Djauan also refrained fromtouching the art on the grounds that she was a strangerand that it might make her sick, too . As she wasBlucher's wife, it would appear that marriage does notautomatically provide rights to, and protection from, rockart. Local Wardaman women were, however, quite freeto touch the art, as were the men.The significant aspect of Flood's questioning is thatif she had only asked the first two questions (i.e. if shehad not specifically asked if women had a right to paint)she could easily have interpreted the replies as indicatingthat there was no social division between men whopainted and men who did not paint. Such interpretationsare common throughout the literature (e.g. Edwards andGuerin 1969: 15).

The limitations of questioning based on traditionalandrocentric assumptions can be perceived inMountford's work on rock art at Uluru. He records rockart at the women's sacred site of Pulari (Mountford'sBulari) without considering the possibility that the artmay have been executed by women rather than men.During his 1940 expedition to Central Australia he calledthe older Aboriginal men into the Pulari cave and askeda number of questions around the subject of whether theart represented hunting magic. When he finally asked thequestion directly the informants replied in the negativeand Mountford concluded that the art had no magicalsignificance (Mountford 1940:485-7). In 1960 aninformant suggested that the art depicted Meta catchingthe emu (Mountford 1960:517). This informant, a mannamed Balinga, was, however, Mountford's one and onlyinformant on the 1960 expedition, spoke little Englishand was anxious to escape Mountford so that he mighthunt dingo pups (see Mountford 1960:391,485,553).

Clearly, Mountford's (1965: 144) interpretation of therock art is too dependent upon the information extractedfrom one, obviously reluctant, informant. It is also clearthat he was determined to discover the ' meaning' of theart despite occasionally having to bully or bribe Balingainto co-operating. Interpretations based upon informationderived from such methods are tenuous to say the least.


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Claire E . Smith 47Apart from this, it would appear that the earlier

1940 informants were not aware of, or willing to impart,any particular meaning denoted by the art. Could it bethat the transmission of knowledge connected with theart was a female, rather than a male, responsibility? Thepresence of men at this site (see also Mountford1965:47) would be regarded by Aboriginal women todayas ritual rape (Wonne-Greene: pers. comm.). Though thesite has been visited by men in the past, it is unlikelythat such visits were sanctioned by women and such menare, I feel, unlikely to have left a calling card in the formof rock paintings.Wonne-Greene, the anthropologist now resident atthe Mutijulu community at Uluru, has received noindication at all that the right to execute rock paintingsin this region might have been restricted to men. Thesignificance of the Pulari site for women is not, however,related to the art, which does not appear to beparticularly relevant to Aboriginal women today. This isconsistent with Crawford's (1972:307) observation thatthe art at (presumably male) sacred sites in the adjacentWestern Desert frequently has little or no relevance tothe myths that make these sites sacred.The point I would like to make here is that the rockart at the Pulari site is just as likely to have beenexecuted by women as by men. While there may beproblems in other parts of Australia with previously opensites becoming closed, I would argue that at Ulurumodem gender restrictions on physical access andknowledge are likely to have antecedents which militatedagainst men leaving physical traces of their presence atthis site.

Any argument that Aboriginal women's business isno more than recent manipulation of land rightslegislation is countered by Spencer and Gillen's(1899[1968]) observation that:

... in regard to the initiation ceremonies of women, it isclear that, as was first shown by Roth, there are certainceremonies which are evidently the equivalents of theinitiation ceremonies concerned with the men.

(Spencer and Gillen (1899[1968) :269)

This notion that female sacra predate European landrights legislation is also supported by Kaberry ' s(1939:277) contention that Aboriginal women in theKimberley maintained a body of knowledge, and a set ofactivities, from which men were excluded. She arguedthat:

... the men represent the uninitiated in the community inregard to women's ceremonies, which, i f less spectacular,are, to the women. just as sacred.

(Kaberry 1939:221)

It would appear, therefore, that exclusive ritualknowledge associated with women 's ceremonies existedin a number of regions within Australia. I would arguethat the execution of rock art may well have been oneexpression of such knowledge.

Aboriginal people in the Kimberley believe that themajority of rock art derives from the Dream time, but thatoccasional embellishments and subjects may be added byhumans. Kaberry (1936:398) records being told that anold woman in Gangula country in the Kimberleyoccasionally touched up rock paintings of Brimurer, theRainbow Snake. Brimurer then took the ochre from thepainting to make a spirit child to replace one that hadrecently been found by a man and incarnated through hiswife. Kaberry asserts that Brimurer made the rain, therivers and pools in the Dreamtime and that:

... in the spirit-children and spirit centres, in themythology and rock paintings of the Rainbow serpent wehave a fertility cult.

(Kaberry 1936:398)Part of that fertility cult involved some women in theexecution of sacred rock art.Kaberry (1939:206) presented the earliest challengeto the traditional dichotomy between sacred and secularrock art through her contention that a category of rockart existed, the full meaning of which was known onlyby old women and old men. The paintings - ofcrocodile, kangaroo, emu, rainbow snake and otherspecies - were executed as a means of ensuring theincrease of species depicted.

The painting itself was generally done by a'headman'. Elkin (1939:xxxix), however, reports beingtold of the existence of a female 'headman' in thisregion during this period; such a woman would,presumably, have incurred responsibilities to land thatinvolved the execution of sacred rock art. Thisinterpretation is supported by Mowaljarlai's statementconcerning the repainting ofWandjinas in the Kimberley:

We need to teach the young men and women ... so thatthey can continue to look after the country. That's whywe, the old men, started to train the young people. A veryimportant part of this training was for them to learn aboutrepainting -body-painting for ceremonies and to renewthe painted images on rock.

(Mowaljarlai et a/ 1988:692)

Vinnicombe (pers. comm.), like Elkin, contends thatthe responsibility for repainting in the Kimberley lay inthe hands of the senior traditional owner. Much paintingcould, nevertheless, be executed under the sanction ofsuch owners by people possessing a particular spiritualquality known as maban.


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48 Rock Art and PrehistoryBoth males and females can be born with spiritual

insight and may display maban features duringchildhood, but maban is also something that can belearnt. People with maban are natural spiritual leaders,though they will not take on this role until after pubertyfor females, and after circumcision for males. Peoplewith maban could be principals in rock art production.Thus, the two mechanisms through which women inthe Kimberley became involved in producing rock art areidentical to those through which men became involved inproducing rock art: that of being a senior traditionalowner, and that of being recognised as having particularspiritual qualities suited to the undertaking of suchresponsibilities. I would like to emphasise that I amreferring to women and men and that I have found noindication at all that girls or boys could traditionally beinvolved in rock art production.

Vinnicombe witnessed a gathering of men, womenand children in a sacred rock shelter on the MitchellPlateau in the Kimberley, at which rain-making songswere sung whilst a new hand stencil was added to thepaintings. Such occurrences need to be considered withinthe context of the contention that designs are actuallyendowed with meaning through being sung or chanted on.How then does one assess the significance of maleand female roles in such ceremonies? A counter to theargument that women were peripheral to the ceremonybecause they did not do the actual painting would be thatmen may not have had the right or power to executethese particular paintings if women had not been there topromote power by singing. Apart from this, it is clearthat the painting of the object is, by itself, insufficient togain the desired ends.

Another site at which women are likely to have hada role in rock art production is that of Beswick Cave.The art at this site was recorded by Macintosh (1952),who made a number of comments suggesting that thissite was of greater significance to women than to men.He records his male informants' repeated references tothis f ave as a woman's cave:

Lamderod's and Mangga's consistent references to'lubra's cave', 'lubra's Big Business', 'lubra's dilly bags','lubra bin leave him', 'lubra sometimes come 'ere' etc.

(Macintosh 1952:270)Macintosh concludes the paper by suggesting thedeviations in painting styles and content are related tothe essentially female emphasis of the cave and itspaintings. The most elaborate painting is of a highly

decorated woman, which Macintosh interprets as part ofa fertility cult, with the woman related to the Djaradasongs, one group of which are women's songs devotedto secret love magic:

She carries above her head a boomerang "little one sameold man (no. 62) had for open 'im, but she has 'iminstead, not man". Apparently she commits selfdefloration. It is dangerous for men to watch her but it isall right for women to see her.

(Macintosh 1952:271)

I would argue that art which is dangerous for mento see is unlikely to have been painted by men .Certainly, women in this area did have some role in rockart production, as Elkin notes that:

Instead of painting a picture, a person (man, woman orchild) may paint or stencil his (her) hand on the wall, butfor the same purpose.

(Elkin 1952:246)Elkin does, however, assert that the figurative art at

this site was executed by men. Notwithstanding, he doesnot explicitly mention the female figure that was toodangerous for men to see and I doubt whether hespecifically asked who painted that particular figure.Unlike Macintosh, Elkin recognises that individuals willhave varying interpretations of art according to theirsocial positions. However, this recognition is still basedupon the notion that there is someone, somewhere, whoknows all - and that that person is a senior initiatedmale. Recent researchers (Lewis and Rose 1988:53 .Berndt and Berndt 1988:412; Tayon 1988) have,however, noted the referential ambiguity of Aboriginalart, which is not open to simple interpretation by oneindividual or, indeed, one sex.

Women's involvement in rock art production inWestern Amhem Land appears, however, to be genuinelyminimal. Tacon (1988 and pers. comm.) notes thatwomen do not appear to have painted elaborate x-ray:paintings, though they have, on occasion, painted stickand recent yam figures .

The degree to which women participated in theproduction of rock art in different areas of Australia is,thus, as variable as the societies in which they lived.Any analysis of women's art must, therefore, beGonducted regionally - it is not valid to extrapolatewomen's actions or motivations within one area toregions outside that area. In some cases the art may bearchaeologically distinguishable from that of men, but inothers it will not be. And in some regions women's rolein sacred rock art production might genuinely have beennegligible or even non-existent.

The question raised by this paper is: if Aboriginalwomen had a role in rock art production, and if theyhad rock art sites from which men were excluded, whyare there so few ethnographic data on these activities?One answer lies with the extent to which the sociocultural background of the ethnographer directs his or


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Claire E. Smith 49her focus to particular areas of research. Another lieswith the nature of gender relations in Aboriginalsocieties.Initial European perceptions of AustralianAborigines were coloured by Romantic fancies thatinterpreted ceremonial life as the 'play' of 'children ofnature' . Various colonists (e.g. Hunter 1793 and Hood1843, quoted in Leiberman 1985:246) asserted thatAborigines showed no signs of religious life, nor ofreligious ceremonies. This failure to apprehend the nexusbetween art, religion and power meant that no questionswere asked concerning the social and communicativerole of art, and that interpretation was not taken beyondempirical limits.This nexus was identified by Spencer and Gillen(1899[1968]) in The Native Tribes of Central Australia,which was one of the first studies to place rock artwithin its social and ceremonial context. The focus ofthis study upon male ceremonies and their identificationof ritual communication with males was initiallyprobably a function of the ethnographers' exclusion fromfemale ceremonies. However, this identification gave riseto the notion that ritual communication was a maledomain. Once this connection had been made, seriousreassessment of women's role in ritual awaited anacceptance of the notion of Aboriginal women as holdersof religious power and responsibility. ,This situation was exacerbated with the publicationof Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Lifein 1915, in which he proposes a framework in which arange of sacredness is differentiated from the secular.While Spencer and Gillen (1899[1968:92- 93]) hadrecognised initiated women as a separate social group,subsequent research conducted within a basicallyDurkheimian framework, such as that of Warner (1958),treated the notions of sacred and secular as a simpledichotomy, parallel to the male-female dichotomy ofAboriginal societies (see Bemdt 1981:189- 190 forspecific cnt1c1sm of Warner's interpretation ofDurkheim). Women were thence taken to be theuninitiated members of the social group simply becausethey were uninitiated into male secrets.Elkin was a principal advocate of this view. Heasserted that:

... women may be independent, powerful, and yet beprofane, or outside of that sphere of sacred belief andritual, admission to which is by religious initiation.

(Elkin 1939:xxx)

Such a view led to women's role in ritual activityconsistently being assessed by the degree to which theywere ' involved' or 'excluded' from male ceremonies. AsHamilton ( 1980:17) points out, the incorporation of

some women into male ceremonies was taken toindicate a rise in status, presumably because they wereallowed access to male secrets. This view denies thepossibility of women contributing their own power orknowledge to the ceremonies and fails to recognise thatwomen, in some areas at least, had an autonomousritual life that encompassed rights and responsibilities toland. I would a r ~ e that the rise in status of womenparticipating in such ceremonies is related to the

m a n i f e ~ t a t i o n and legitimisation of female religiousauthority.The dearth of information on women 's culture inrock art studies of the twentieth century can be explainedin terms of the gender relations of both Aboriginal andEuropean cultures. White, middle-class maleethnographers dominated early research into AustralianAboriginal culture. They viewed women's ceremonieswithin a theoretical framework . hat identified womenwith home and hearth, rather than power and-religiousresponsibility. This is not to say that they did notrecognise the need for female ethnographers. Thedecisions made by Kaberry and Goodale to focus their- attention upon women were at the instigation of Elkinand Mountford respectively (see Kaberry 1939:ix andGoodale 1980:xxii). Such recognition did not, however,negate or even contradict the dominant European viewthat the Aboriginal sacred realm was principally, orwholly, a male domain.The primary informants of early, male ethnographerswere Aboriginal men who are likely to have valued theritual activity of their own sex above that of females andwho, in any case, would not have had the right to speak

on women's issues. It is also likely that Aboriginalwomen did not attribute identical status to male andfemale ceremonies. In fact, there is considerableevidence to suggest the contrary - that male ceremonialactivity is generally accorded a higher prestige than thatof women. This is particularly apparent in women' swillingness to underwrite male ceremony through theprovision of resources and in the degree to which theritual activities of each sex is allowed to disrupt normalactivity (cf. Merlan 1988:66). Myers (1986:252- 3), forexample, argues that Pintupi men's ceremonies have awider inclusiveness than women's in that they entail theaggregation of large groups and determine themovements and labour of women for extended periods.Such observations are common throughout the literatureand this is possibly a universal throughout Aboriginalsocieties. Merlan's (1988) view is most insightful:

It has seemed to me that the subjective understandings ofwomen about themselves reveal no gender based sensewhatsoever of personal inferiority to men, but a sense ofpriority of certain male domains, especially ritual, and a


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50 Rock Art and Prehistorystrong sense of the propriety of adhering to norms ofgender differentiated behaviour.

(Merlan 1988:59)

My point here is that the nature of the interfacebetween European and Aboriginal c u l t u r e ~ was such thatit would have been extremely difficult for d e ~ i l e dinformation on women's ceremonial life to emerge. Elkin(1939:xx-) notes that a male researeher questioningAboriginal men on aspects of women's culture would beinstructed to question the women directly. He alsoargues, notwithstanding, that:

... the male anthropologist is apt to feel, and rightly so,that he, as a man, should respect the taboo and not pryinto the preserves of the other sex ... In any case, the maleworker refrains, from reasons of courtesy and delicacy,from inquiring into some aspects of a woman's life. He isnot a physician. (Elkin 1939:xx)

Whilst aspects of this statement are elliptical, Elkinproperly recognises that the study of Aboriginal women 'sceremonies by European men would have transgressedAboriginal social codes. It is likely that his courtesy wasappreciated by both Aboriginal men and women.

Mountford's explanation for his own failure tocollect women's crayon drawings is also illuminating:

No attempt was made by the writer to collect anydrawings from the women. As every ethnologist knows itis unwise, and usually calamitous, to carry out researchwith both sexes. The inevitable outcome is that the menbecome suspicious that the secrets they have imparted tothe investigator are being passed on to the women, or viceversa. However, my young companion, Mr L.E. Sheard,about seventeen years of age, in collaboration with amiddle-aged Aboriginal woman, was able to obtain asmall series of drawings from the women.

(Mountford 1976:109)

Mountford was presented with a practical dilemmaand took what he probably considered to be the onlyoption open to him. However, this was not the case withthe early female ethnographer Daisy Bates, who mighthave had access to women's ceremonies but chose toidentify herself with men rather than women. Shedescribes the latter as 'less than dust' (Bates 1938:28).Her focus upon male culture and her access to secretmale ceremonies almost certainly militated against herbeing granted fuller access to women's ceremonies. Asimilar position to that of Mountford has been takenmore recently by Bell (1983:8) who went into the fieldwith the intention of focusing solely upon women. Mycriticism of all such studies is that this approach is

unnecessarily limited and prohibits insights into thenature of male-female relations.

Nearly all detailed information of women's culturehas come from female research. The 'excavation' of suchinformation had to await the advent of the femaleethnographer as well as a social and intellectual climatein which the study of women's culture is considered alegitimate research issue, rather than an eccentricaberration. Such a climate only really emerged in the late'seventies and early 'eighties during which periodvarious aspects of women's role in Aboriginal societyhave undergone re-evaluation by, principally female,researchers. One of the more interesting studies is that ofCaroline Bird (1988), who investigates the role ofwomen in the manufacture and maintenance of stonetools.The principal difference between researchers of the'eighties and those of earlier periods is in the type ofquestions which are being asked. Today these questionsrest upon the assumption that women in both Europeanand Aboriginal societies can hold positions of power andreligious authority.

That Aboriginal women have done a better job atkeeping their secrets secret can be explained in terms ofboth the sex, race and socio-cultural background of theethnographer as well as the likelihood that Aboriginalwomen did not see that they had anything to gain bydisclosing secrets. Apart from this, it is clear that menspeak more easily to men and that women speak moreeasily to women.The identification of w o ~ e n ' s sacred sites is onlyreally emerging within the context of Europeanrecognition of Aboriginal rights to control sites and land(e.g. Lewis and Rose 1988:70); it rimy be that the cost ofexposure has become less than the cost of losing theland. Aboriginal women are now willing to speak outconcerning their responsibilities to land. Part of thoseresponsibilities involved the custodianship andmaintenance of sacred sites, including those that haverock art.

While the existence of rock art sites sacred to maleshas received considerable anthropological andarchaeological attention, no-one seems to have seriouslyconsidered women's role in rock art production, or thepossibility that women may have had rock art sites fromwhich men were excluded. Such sites exist in theethnographic present and are likely to have existed inprehistoric Australia and elsewhere. I f they did exist, andcan be identified as such, their identification must becrucial to regional and inter-site studies. They may alsoindicate the degree of female ritual autonomy throughtime and space.

This paper has focused upon interpretations and casestudies of Australian rock art. There are, however,


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Claire E. Smith 51implications for rock art studies in other parts of theworld. The assumption that sacred rock art, or rock artin general, was executed solely by men underlies variousinterpretations of European rock art. Guthrie (1984), forexample, claims that:

The Palaeolithic art which has been preserved seems to bean art by men about male preoccupations. .(Guthrie 1984:71)This is certainly not always the case in theAustralian situation and, I would argue, is unlikely to be

the case in Europe (see also Balm, this volume).Guthrie 's assumption that the depiction of huntingactivities will be a male province, is refuted by the

content of women's crayon drawings collected on the1940 Mountford expedition to Central Australia. Variousfemale artists depicted the hunting journeys of men,women and couples (Mountford 1976:111-114) . As thesewere the first drawings on non-traditional mediaexecuted by these women, and as they were given noinstruction as to what to draw, it is likely that they werethematically similar to traditional sources (cf. Robinsonand Bagglin 1977:70).Quite apart from this, there are ethnographic reportsof women painting rock in other parts of the world.Schaafsma (1985:260), for example, provides a numberof instances of women painting as part of NorthAmerican Indian puberty ceremonies. In addition,Seligmann and Seligmann (1969:319) also refer towomen painting rocks in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) at theturn of the century. Gender may thus be an importantfactor in both recent and prehistoric rock art variabilityin various parts of the world. Interpretations ofprehistoric rock art should be modified to take intoaccount the probable role of women in rock artproduction.

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank those people who provided writtencomment on earlier drafts of this paper: Jane Balme,Wendy Beck, lain Davidson and, especially, MikeMorwood. I would also like to thank those researcherswho allowed me to publish their personalcommunications: Darrell Lewis, Deborah Rose, PaulTac;:on, Pat Vinnicombe and Susan Wonne-Greene. Mostof these also offered either written or verbal comment onearlier drafts and often tl:l,ese comments wereincorporated into the text. Darrell Lewis was particularlyhelpful in this regard. Jo Flood kindly invited me toYingalarri. Special thanks to John Fisher, Gary Jacksonand John Sutton. Any errors of omission or interpretationare, of course, my own.

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