The interpretive framework of Wardaman rock art: A preliminary report

Abstract

In July and August 1988, I participated in Earthwatch-funded research relating to Wardaman rock art, in a pastoral area south-west of Katherine, Northern Territory. While most of the other researchers came to the project with a specific background and particular interest in rock art as a special medium, my point of departure was somewhat different. I began rather with a general set of questions about relationships of people to country in this area. Building on some aspects of research I began with Wardaman people in the latter 1970's, I am interested in documenting the nature of people-land relationships, including the now accelerating changes in these relationships. Based on earlier work (including a trip in 1978 to the Lightning Brothers site on Delamere), I knew that the abundant and sometimes spectacular rock art of the area has a place in the set of larger people-land relationships, but I was not certain how and to what extent it might be a significant part overall. I was also aware from earlier work that most of the sites of significance people spoke of in Wardaman country were either not art sites, or if they apparently were, this aspect of them was not attributed much greater prominence than other aspects of them and their relation to mythology and recent history.