Page:Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales.djvu/25

Rh made with charcoal and something like red paint, upon the white ground of the rock. They represented porpoises, turtles, kangaroos, and the human hand." There were also "the representation of a kangaroo with a file of thirty-two persons following after it. The third person of the band was twice the height of the others, and held in his hand something resembling the waddy, or wooden sword, of the natives of Port Jackson."

Aboriginal rock-paintings are executed in three different ways, which may be called the stencil, the impression, and the outline methods respectively. In the stencil method, the palm of the hand was placed firmly on the rock, with the fingers and thumb spread out, and the required colour—generally pipe-clay, red ochre, or charcoal—was squirted or blown over it out of the mouth of the operator. This manner of drawing was also adopted in many instances in representing implements of the chase, such as boomerangs, tomahawks, waddies, &c. In the impression method, the colour to be used was mixed with a liquid in a native vessel, into which the palm of the hand was lightly dipped and then pressed against the surface of the rock. On the removal of the hand, the coloured imprint was left clearly defined. Objects to which neither of the preceding methods would be applicable were drawn in outline, in the required colours. In some cases the objects were merely outlined, in other cases they were coloured all over with a wash, whilst in others, the space within the margin of the outlines was shaded by strokes of colour.

In the annexed plate, Fig. 1 represents four hands stencilled in red, two