Australian Indigenous Artwork - Essay Example

?Narrative: Find/ choose a style of Indigenous art or a piece of art that represents a particular art form (while in exercises will focus on Australian Indigenous art work, you may choose any form of Indigenous art work/style). Using this artwork/style as a base: (i) describe the style itself, and the stories therein in relation to specific examples you might be using (ii) describe how this art form reflects Indigenous connection to the environment traditional, contemporary or both) and; (iii) consider what are the aspects displayed here, the particular dimensions of indigeneity that it manifests?  Native Australian art forms have received renewed interest in recent decades, with anthropologists and historians arriving at a refined understanding of them. Of particular interest is the emphasis on artistic style and environmental sensitivity displayed by artefacts. Recent research on this interesting field was made possible through the analysis of numerous aboriginal wooden artefacts traded between European and Aboriginal Australians in South East Australia during the time of colonization of the continent. For example, in the comprehensive study carried out by research team of Tacon et.al, “thirty objects were studied, 17 (56%) being boomerangs, 4 (13%) clubs, 3 (10%) shields, 3 (10%) walking sticks, 2 (7%) clap sticks and one spear thrower. On these, there are 119 animal depictions, nearly half (47%) being emus or humans. A total of 28 objects were illustrated. There are a few floral motifs, trees and a tree branch, as well as six landscape settings with animals, trees and topography.” (Tacon, et.al, 2003, p.91) This essay will focus on one particular aboriginal wooden artefact, namely the boomerang, and broaden its understanding through the lens of style and environment. Firstly, although recent studies have included wooden objects with figurative designs, as well as their links to earlier ground, tree and rock-art traditions, ethnographic documentation of them in and of itself does not lead to complete understanding of their cultural evolution. The research team of Tacon et.al carefully studied 469 individual pieces of wooden artefacts (a substantial number of them being boomerangs) by also considering the development of individual, community and regional styles. They arrived at a “theory about the role of such material culture during changing times in south-east Australia. More generally, they argue that material culture both mediate and express change, with figurative motifs and storytelling through pictures particularly effective when communicating to diverse groups of people of varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds.” (Tacon, et.al, 2003, p.89) One of the earliest dated artefacts from this collection from the Australian museum was documented to have been acquired near Wagga Wagga in the year 1865. It is an assortment of various types of artefacts. Some of them are illustrations of early European settlers in the neighbourhood. These artefacts are also unique in that they contained Roman numerals as opposed to more plain geometric depictions of earlier productions. Drawings are composed on such artefacts as clubs, parrying shields and boomerangs. The profound influence of the natural environment on indigenous culture is learnt from frequent appearances of animals in the wild. This includes goanna, kangaroo, snake, emu, kookaburras, etc. The frequent depictions of the wildlife show the importance of the environment to the daily lives of native Australians. For example, in later productions, refined and “faintly incised poker-worked animals in landscapes are common in material made between the early 1920s and 1970s, usually boomerangs and shields...In central Victoria, nineteenth century pieces are incised but Coranderrk pieces from the early 1900s are poker worked. On nineteenth century incised objects solitary small animals such as lizards, emus, kangaroos or koalas are common. Sometimes there are depictions of humans with weapons and/or engaged in combat, or introduced subjects, such as a horse's head or sailing ship, are illustrated. Early twentieth century pieces have possums, swans, kookaburras and other birds. Half circle designs border edges of some boomerangs and shields from Coranderrk and Echuca.” (Haslam, 2010, p.52) Further, when Lorainne Gibson interviewed some of the artists, they shared their insights on what art means to their community and its broader implications. For example, a few of the older Aborigines seem to recollect the craftsmanship of the bygone era, and the deep connection between art and the environment. The author notes that “The Aboriginal artists from Wilcannia and Broken Hill with whom I work consider their ‘art style' and ‘art designs' in localised (if not always clearly specified) ways and terms encapsulated by the phrase 'ours is lines'. It is to the localised assertions of the particularity and importance of art style and content as an explicit and spoken sign of a unique identity that my work attends--a particularity embraced by many who identify as Barkindji and who either live and/or were born in Wilcannia. This demonstrates how making and discussing art shapes ideas of what Barkindji culture is seen and thought to be and, importantly, what it is not for Barkindji people who are from, and remain, strongly connected to Wilcannia.” (Gibson, 2008, p.281) There are several myths woven around the boomerang. In Kowanyama, for example, alongside offering useful lexical associations, the boomerang features in a key Kunjen creation myth in which the Nighthawk (another mytic creation), having employed his boomerang escapes out of a chamber ridden with excreta so as to get some breath. He leaves behind his close female relatives (especially his mother and sister) so that he can begin his journey into manhood. In other words, the boomerang is used by him as a way of identifying himself as a man who has will and agency of his own. The symbolism is more emphatic, when we consider the fact that the hollow log from which he escapes out is represented as a male penis and the spatio-temporal journey demarcates him from his associations to the female-dominated world of childhood. Towards the end of the story he makes sorcery (puri puri) and performs it as a rite of passage. He completes this passage into manhood by “hitting different trees with his boomerang until he finds a cotton tree that bleeds and undergoes a transformation into another man, who promptly fights back.” (Barker, 2000, p.86) In the English translation of the original myth, “Having fought back, the cotton tree ancestral being tells the Nighthawk that when people die they will turn, like a tree burned in a bush fire, into a skeleton of ash upon the ground”. (Barker, 2000, p.86) Just as the indigenous community is given birth by the natural environment, the man is given birth by his wielding of the boomerang. In this way Aborigines form strong sociological associations with their environment through their art and artefacts. The salience of cultural and lifestyle artefacts like boomerangs is aptly illustrated by researcher Mary Kleinert. Focussing on specimens from late 18th century to early 20th century, she asserts these artefacts “demonstrate a continuity of cultural form, content and meaning through (in particular) the production of carved and incised wooden artefacts and emu eggs.... For Barkindji Aboriginal people in Wilcannia and Broken Hill, there can be no argument that art has become a recognised vehicle for demonstrating continuity of practices and 'traditions'. Furthermore, the categorization of the object world relies upon the recursive projection of 'self' onto the environment. The self, as Braidotti (1991) puts it, is bio-culturally gendered. The physicality of gender means that it is a fundamental and universal category, and larger and more complex differentiations rely upon the extrapolation of familiar models. Thus gender attributes will permeate all other objectifications, and every evaluation will incorporate qualities which have gender associations.” (Kleinert, 2000, p.45) If we have to understand the power and significance of traditional artefacts like the boomerang, we have to study their practical importance. Today, most of the popular sports played in Australia were those instituted during the time of colonization. The only exception to this is ‘boomerang throwing’. Although there is a universal acceptance of the Indigenous origin of the sport of boomerang throwing, new claims are emerging that Australian Rules football has taken many aspects of a traditional Aboriginal ball game called ‘marn-grook’. Jim Poulter, who has done extensive research in this area, has continued to argue since the 1980s that the two apparently unconnected sports are indeed quite similar. (Morwood, 2003, p.78) But, coming back to the practical salience of boomerang throwing, one must recognize the living conditions of primitive Aboriginal tribes at the time of evolution of the sport. Predominantly adapted to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, adults (especially men) were required to be fit, energetic, athletic, dextrous and skilful in order to acquire resources for their families. While play activities and sports might look recreational now, in the original context they were seen as necessary survival skills. In this manner, the adrenaline rush and excitement that is presently generated by organized sports was earlier achieved through innovative modes of survival. And items such as the boomerang exemplify this multi-dimensional nature of native life, where the surrounding environment and the implements with which it were explored and exploited possessed elements of style as well as substance. (Edwards, 2009, p.32) Finally, an important aspect of native Australian culture that is symbolized through its art forms is the power relations between the genders. Despite their subordinate position to Europoean colonizers, the Aborigines were able to retain their internal social structures. According to sociologist Veronica Strang, this was possible because “analysis of material culture, representation and the transmission of knowledge in Australia suggests that the concretization of knowledge, symbolic meaning values - and, of course, gender categories - in material objects plays a central role in cultural reproduction. Also, the cultural systems of Aboriginal groups in Australia are demonstrably conservative, being mediated and thus anchored by the land. More controversial, however, is a suggestion based on the argument outlined at the outset: the steel axe remained a 'male' object, despite being given to the women, because of the persistence of gender categories which, though cultural in form, are founded upon universal cognitive oppositions intractably linked to anatomical differences and the embodiment of gender experience.” (Strang, 1999, p.75) References: Barker, A. (2000). What Happened When: A Chronology of Australia from 1788. St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin. Edwards, K. (2009). Traditional Games of a Timeless Land: Play Cultures in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2009(2), 32+. Gibson, L. (2008). 'We Don't Do Dots-Ours Is Lines'-Asserting a Barkindji Style. Oceania, 78(3), 280+. Goldenweiser, A. A. (1929). Early Civilization: An Introduction to Anthropology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Haslam, N. (2010, January). Telling the Stories of Their Land. Geographical, 82, 50+. Mcgregor, R. (2004). Develop the North: Aborigines, Environment and Australian Nationhood in the 1930s. Journal of Australian Studies, (81), 33+. Morwood, M. J. (2003). Visions from the Past : The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art /. St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin. Strang, V. (1999). Familiar Forms: Homologues, Culture and Gender in Northern Australia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 5(1), 75+. Tacon, P. S., South, B., & Hooper, S. B. (2003). Depicting Cross-Cultural Interaction: Figurative Designs in Wood, Earth and Stone from South-East Australia. Archaeology in Oceania, 38(2), 89+. Kleinert, S. 2000. Art and Aboriginality in the south-east. In S. Kleinert and M. Neale (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal art and culture, pp. 24047. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 2000. 'Art and Aboriginality in the south-east' in The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. S. Kleinert. and M. Neale. (eds). Oxford: University Press. Read More