We leave early from Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria, and arrive in the foothills of the ranges by mid afternoon. Pressing on along bush tracks we climb to the summit of the Grampians plateau and begin our search for the rock art grottos. Some say these caves are haunted and that the Grampians Devil lurks in wait for those who venture here by night. But I am of the 21st century and I have no truck with silly superstitions.

Still, I have to admit there are places in these mountains that are, somehow ... disturbing. Perhaps it's not surprising? The Eumeralla War raged through these hills for forty years. Dark and bloody things were done in our country, things which are too terrible to relate. I'm glad it's day time.

The town of **** and the the northern Grampians lie on what was the frontier between the Wotjo-Baluk native people, whose domains included the Wimmera and Mallee country of north-western Victoria and the Mara people of southern Victoria. I learned that the Mukjarawaint tribe who lived by the Wimmera River north of **** visited the Burong (**** Range) to perform certain rites in devotion to Bunjil the Law Giver. 

Somewhat to the east of the  Grampians, by the waters of  Martang (Lake ****) and Djekyl (Lake ****e) lived the Jardwa people, of the Wotjo-Baluk. In the north and western Grampians lived the Buandik people. 

Actually, I should emphasise that not many of the things I say within these web pages comes from academic study or "book learning" : I read Josephine Flood's excellent books to be sure but much of what I have learned comes from things I have been told.

The Panamaritee Rock Art Tradition of the central desert seems never to have penetrated south eastern Australia where prehistoric artistic conventions conformed to the Simple Figurative style whose charactertistic is that figures of animals and people are represented in a sideways, silhouette view. However, there are two distinctive Silhouette Art styles featured in the Grampians. White clay designs are said to be the work of Jardwa people and are probably more recent than the red ochre figures which are attributed to the Buandik. 

NOTE: White clay renderings of silhoutte figures, and also "Bunjil" whom we'll meet in another page, have clearly been retouched in very recent times. No doubt for the tourist trade?

My own opinion, for whatever it's worth, is that the red ochre works are very old indeed: they do not appear to represent any post contact scenes, whereas I've heard that some white clay works possibly do. Indeed the red ochre works are in many cases heavily eroded by water trickling through the ceilings of the rock shelters and grottos where they are located. Red ochre, being composed largely of Ferric Oxide, insinuates itself within the matrix of the rock where it can endure for as long as the rock itself does. It's likely these works once featured other colours, not so resistant, which have long since weathered away. 

The Simple Figurative Style, by contrast with the ancient Panamarittee style of north and central Australia, tends to correlate with parts of the continent which enjoy higher rainfall. It's odd because there is no obvious geographical boundary between the two regions.The Simple Figurative Style appears to be distinctively uniform across its range. And, alas, it too is extinct.
 

In fact the salient feature of Panamarittee is that it represents the world as a sort of 2D plan : the perspective, if that's the right word, is always from above looking down. The figurative art of southern Australia is different : it looks like it's meant to tell a story in narrative. Well, to me at least.

These symbols do look, to me anyway, like they were meant to say something. But to whom? A reader?
 

I take plenty of photos and start counting. Hey c'mon, what else would you do? What we seem to have here is a prehistoric number sequence that somebody a very long time ago went to a lot of trouble to record. Being a logical sort of person, I count'em just to see if I can discern some kind of pattern. Nothing much so far, though. 

Hmmm ... you know, on the other hand, there just  might be a repeating pattern of about 30 involved. Are we talking lunar cycles here? We're near the highest point of the Grampians : was this place an observatory?? If we are dealing with an astronomical record here and seeing as we have so many "data points", maybe we could detect something that would clinch the the idea? Like the Saros or the Metonic Cycle perhaps?

All right readers, you tell me : are such ideas completely out of the question? Why would prehistoric people in Australia not take an interest in astronomy? Ancient people most everywhere else did. 

There is a curious conjunction here with Bunjil who is said to have brought Law and culture to the People back in the Dream Time. Bunjil was associated with the star Altair and he had two helpers in the form of dogs. Altair, of course, lies in Aquila, the Eagle, at RA 20 hours while diametrically opposite on an arc through the South Celestial Pole  lies Sirius, at roughly 8 hours RA, in Canis Major. Sirius was known to ancient peoples of the Old World as the Dog Star. Dream time legends tell how the people of the Kulin Nation were engaged in an everlasting war between the Eagle-Hawke and the Crow people: Bunjil was of the Eagle-Hawke and the legend tells that he ascended into the sky where he keeps watch over the People.

Do we have here an insight into  prehistoric Australian cosmology? And is there a hint that Australian native peoples associated constellations of the Zodiac in ways similar to other cultures : Sirius, the  Dog Star next door to Orion with its powerful myths of Death and Resurrection and the hope of immortality, Bunjil returning to his home in the constellation of the Eagle, and so on?

The parallels are indeed curious : could there have been cultural contacts in the distant past?

That's a good question, even if I did ask it myself! The topmost designs are high up, some on the ceiling itself. Maybe 10 metres or so above ground. The artist would need some kind of ladder or scaffold to get up there. I look around. There are curious rounded holes in the rock face, above and to one side of the main artworks. Some are on the outside of the rock shelter.

I reckon they've been ground into the rock by some kind of pointed implement : they're anchor points for a scaffold which, no doubt, was constructed of local tree trunks and branches. That would allow the artist to move freely around the rock face and paint in comfort.

There are many more questions than I have answers ...

Stay tuned for  : Bunjil's Cave
                  Rock Art of the Outback