Images of the Dreaming

According to the beliefs of many Aboriginal groups, people have been in Australia since the beginning - the Dreaming. During this momentous period the ancestral spirits came up out of the earth and down from the sky to walk on the land. They shaped its rocks, rivers, mountains, forests and deserts; they also created all the people, animals and plants that were to live in the country and laid down the patterns their lives were to follow. It was the spirit ancestors who gave Aboriginal people their laws, customs and codes of conduct, and who are the source of the songs, dances, designs and rituals that are the basis of Aboriginal religious expression.

When they had completed their work, the creators returned to the land. They became creeks, pools, piles of rock, or remained as outlines or impressions on rock walls for people to see and trace with paint. Throughout northern Australia can be found many spirit-figure paintings that are said to be the actual ancestral beings rather than the work of any human artist. People inherited these sacred pictures and it has been their responsibility to freshen colours, repair any damage, and repaint them from time to time.

The Wandjina paintings of the central Kimberley are believed to be the powerful creative heroes themselves, cloud beings who control the rain, storms and floods. Their painted images show them as basically human in form, with large bodies outlined in red, great dark eyes, no mouths and 'haloes' of cloud and lightning.

Similarly, Aboriginal people of western Arnhem Land say that their Mimi rock pictures were painted not by humans but by the Mimi spirits. The drawings, usually in red ochre, show elegant, graceful stick-like human figures in action - fighting, running, dancing, leaping and hunting. The Mimi live in the nooks and crannies of the rocky landscape, coming out at night. They are said to be so thin and frail that they can emerge from their hiding places only when there is no wind, otherwise they would be blown away. The Mimi not only created these lively self-portraits, but also are the Dreaming ancestors who taught people to paint, hunt, dance and compose songs.