Shadows on the Rock

On the walls of London's Australia House last week, painted beings with white, mouthless faces wavered. Some of them appeared to be swimming in seas of little kangaroos, ducks, lilies and yams. They were copies of rare aboriginal cave paintings found in the Kimberley district of Northwestern Australia--and they looked a good deal fresher than the child's play of much modern art.

The cave paintings are among the oldest art known. The reason they looked so fresh was that every year, for centuries, Australian aborigines had retouched them with red and yellow ocher and pipeclay white. The aborigines believe that wond'ina--the strong, gentle spirits of rain and fertility--made the pictures originally, by casting their shadows on the rocks.

Before each rainy season, naked aborigines reverently approached the painted shadows, and touched them. Sure enough, the rains came.

No one can say just how old the wond'ina paintings are, but they date far back into Australia's Stone Age, which lasted until the white man arrived.

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