Sacred and ceremonial objects and designes

Many artistic activities of the aborigines have a religious or magical background. This applies to some rock paintings and engravings, and also to decorated weapons. But beside these, there are sacred objects made especially for use during ceremonies. Some of these, such as the churingas and bullroarers of Central Australia, the dancing boards, ceremonial tablets, and the rangga carved figures, are very ancient, and have been handed down from generation to generation for an unknown length of time. Other ceremonial objects are made and used for one ritual only and are afterwards destroyed or discarded.

Many of these lovingly made and decorated objects have intricate patterns and are artistically of a high order.

Churingas

A churinga (of Central Australia) is a very sacred object which represents the ancestral and the individual spirit of its owner. Each tribe is divided into totems related to animals, plants or objects, and the legends and relationship of each totemic group are recorded on the churingas. The churinga is an oval or elongated slab or stone or wood which can be either rounded or pointed at both ends. The size of the smallest churinga is only one inch, but large stone ones may be about three feet long, while those from Western Australia are chiefly made from wood and vary considerably in size, some of them reaching a length of seventeen feet. The large ones are known as, dancing-boards. Some Central Australian wooden churingas have a small hole drilled through one end, and if a string is fastened through it they can be whirled round. They produce a loud humming sound which the women believe to be the voice of a dangerous spirit. These churingas are called bullroarers.

Many churingas are manufactured with great care and patience, and beautiful highly conventionalized designs are engraved on them by means of possum teeth. The churingas are sacred, and they can be seen only by initiated men during the time of ceremony. At other times they are carefully wrapped in bark or skins and hidden in sacred places. Women and children are not allowed to see them, and the breaking of this rule is punishable by death or blinding. The churingas are known to exist in many parts of Australia, but the finest decorated stone ones come from Central Australia. Conventionalized designs on these record legends, and the various symbols will help the man who knows the legend to recite it correctly. This is well shown in the British Museum on a churinga of the grasshopper totem of the Ngalia tribe from Central Australia.
Click here to see Fig. 54 (52 k)

The symbols are explained on the churinga and referred to while the story is told. The meaning of the design on this one is: At a place called Ngapatjimbi (1) there were a number of grasshoppers. They came out of the ground, and flew up, and coming down they went into the ground again. The grasshoppers multiplied, and after the next rain they came out of the places marked (2). They flew up and came down as men. These men went to Wantangara (3), and going into a cave, turned into churingas.

On this particular churinga the bands of parallel lines linking circles represent the paths the grasshoppers made by breaking down leaves. Pairs of lines represent their tracks.

Meanings of symbols vary. For instance, the most frequently used pattern of concentric circles may represent a water-hole, fruit, a tree, a grass-seed cake, a locality, a rat's nest, or the body of a spider. Another typical symbol, the U-shaped curve, may represent a resting-place or men sitting down. Markings on churingas from Central Australia have hundreds of different and definite meanings, yet the number of conventionalized symbols or patterns is relatively small. Some of them, illustrated from specimens in the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Cambridge University, are shown in Fig. 55.
Click here to see Fig. 55 (80 k)

Some of the engraved stone churingas from Central Australia are very ancient-it is fortunate that engraved designs on stone survive where painted ones would perish. The designs, usually of great artistic merit, are always well placed on the stone area available.
Click here to see Fig. 56 (84 k) Click here to see Fig. 57 (140 k)

The typical Central Australian churinga designs are found in north Australia as far as the country of the Wardaman tribe, which is also the northern limit of the distribution of churingas. The Central Australian designs are also found in parts of Western Australia, on churingas that are usually of wood with engraved or painted designs.
Click here to see Fig. 58 (92 k)

The churingas of Western Australia, which are chiefly of wood, and vary in size from a few inches to seventeen feet, are decorated with incised designs, angular in character.
Click here to see Fig. 59 (116 k)

Typical patterns are based on longitudinal zigzags, concentric squares, rhomboids, lozenges, triangles, herring-bone, and angular meanders. From the area of Broome and the western Kimberleys comes the angular meander pattern (see Fig. 59 above, of the two on right). Another characteristic feature of some Western Australian churingas is the decoration of their upper surface only, while the reverse remains plain.

An unusual technique of decorating is applied to the wooden churingas from Nannine in Western Australia which are carved in high relief.
Click here to see Fig. 60 (84 k)

These raised carvings of snakes, human-like forms, kangaroos, elongated ovals, and other non-representational designs are obtained by cutting away and lowering the whole surface except the part that will remain in high relief. The flat surface surrounding the high-relief carvings is then engraved with typical Western Australian patterns, which are so adapted that they harmonize with the high-relief carvings. Once again we have here a proof of the artistic ability of the aborigines, whose work shows not only great technical skill but also a flair for aesthetically satisfying design.