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Western Desert Iconography: Rock art mythological narratives and graphic vocabularies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Jo McDonald  and
Peter Veth
Jo McDonald*
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia
*
Josephine McDonald, Centre for Rock Art Research and Management, Archaeology M405, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The travels of the ancestral beings known as Wati Kutjarra (two lizard-men) are central to Western Desert cosmology. The results of their actions, markings and transmogrified forms are often seen in socially ‘open’ domains and cover and connect features over huge tracts of land. On the central Canning Stock Route of Western Australia there are detailed ethnographic records and ongoing observances of Wati Kutjarra by custodians at a number of ranges and water holes where pigment rock art occurs in shelters. At these same locales archaeological excavations have yielded ochres and occupational deposits which suggest these places have acted as aggregation locales through long periods of time. In this paper we explore the dynamics and genesis of socially constituted desert iconography through time.

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Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 58 , Issue 3: Cross-Cultural Art History in a Polycentered World , August 2011 , pp. 7 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2012

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