Page:Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales.djvu/26

Rh snakes, three lizards, and part of an iguana, the remainder of the latter being supposed to have disappeared into a crack in the rock. The head of one of the snakes is hidden in a crack in a similar manner. The rest of the figures comprise two six-legged objects which I cannot identify, and four straight lines—three being in one group, and another close to one of the hands. Fig. 2, which is in the same cave as Fig. 1, shows two drawings which may have been intended to represent the sun, an iguana, a death-adder, four footmarks of birds, and a small cross. Fig. 3 represents a group of twenty-five impressed hands. All the paintings in Figs. 1, 2, and 3 are done in red colour, on a large rock about three-quarters of a mile southerly from portion No. 4, parish of Wilpinjong, county of Phillip.

Fig. 4 delineates three birds, one of which is on the wing; a kangaroo, and a dingo or native cat, all drawn in black colour, in a cave near portion No. 16, parish of Wareng, county of Hunter. Fig. 5 contains three human figures, a kangaroo, and four objects resembling eels. They are all in black colour, and are situated near portion No. 16, parish of Macdonald, county of Hunter. Fig. 6 represents a man and a woman apparently dancing a corroboree, and is drawn in black, red, and white colours, in a cave near portion No. 42, parish of Tollagong, county of Hunter. The other drawings represent a human foot, a hand, a native tomahawk, a boomerang, and a waddy, all done in stencil, in white colour. Fig. 7, which is locally known among the white settlers as the "Devil in the Rock," is drawn in deep black, in a small cave close to the Macdonald River, in the parish of Kindarun, county of Hunter. Mr. Joseph Merrick told me he had known of this drawing for the last seventy years, and that it was there when he first came into the district.

In the "Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Ray," published 1789 (p.p. 106, 107), it is stated that—

"In all the excursions of Governor Phillip in the neighbourhood of Botany Bay and Port Jackson the figures of animals, of shields and weapons, and even of men, have been found carved upon the rocks. Fish were often represented, and in one place the form of a large lizard was sketched out with tolerable accuracy."

For some years past I have been endeavouring to copy and describe in detail as many as possible of these specimens of pictorial art, showing the imitative faculties of a primitive people. The annexed drawing accurately reproduces (with some minor omissions) certain rock carvings found near Port Jackson and on the Hawkesbury River.

The following method appears to have been pursued by the natives in executing these carvings:—A number of holes were first made close together along the outline of the intended figure, and these were afterwards connected by cutting out the intervening spaces, thus making a continuous groove of the required width and depth. Judging by the punctured indentations, the aboriginal artist had a hard stone or pebble chipped or ground to a point, and used as a chisel. There does not appear to be reason for assigning a remote date of execution to any of the carvings. Some of the best preserved have no doubt been done since the first occupation of the country by the white race. I met a blackfellow in the Hawkesbury River District, who told me that he had seen one of his countrymen engaged in cutting on a large rock the figure of a man, which he subsequently pointed out to me.