WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

Aboriginal rock art paintings in the west Kimberley, particularly in the
Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland and Balanggarra native tile claim area and the
Devonian reef, are both powerful and of deep religious significance to Kimberley
Aboriginal people and have outstanding heritage value to the nation under
criterion (e) as they represent a stunning visual record of an ongoing Aboriginal
painting tradition in a substantially unmodified landscape.
CRITERION (f) – The place has outstanding heritage value because of the place's
importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at
a particular period
DESIGN AND INNOVATION
Exceptional creative diversity and fine technical detail of painted rock images
One of the most renowned aspects of Aboriginal culture in the Kimberley is the 'rock
art' comprising painted images of Creation Beings, ancestors, plants and animals;
powerful images that are of deep religious significance to Kimberley Aboriginal
people.
Painted images of exceptional creative diversity and fine technical detail are located
in rock shelters on the traditional homelands of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community
and on the traditional lands of the Balanggarra people. The homeland of the Wanjina-
Wunggurr community has been the subject of three native title determinations made by
the community, each of which recognises that the Wanjina-Wunggurr people hold the
native title rights and interests in their traditional country. These three determinations are
the Wanjina-Wunggurr-Wilinggin Determination, the Wanjina-Wunggurr-
Dambimangari Determination and the Wanjina-Wunggurr-Unnguu Determination.
The Balanggarra traditional lands adjoin the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland stretching
east of Kalumburu to Cambridge Gulf and are subject to two separate native title claims
made on behalf of the Balanggarra people.
The ranges of the Devonian reef complex further south, also contain a large number
of caves and rock shelters whose surfaces are decorated with an extraordinary
diversity of painted motifs. The Bunuba, Gooniyandi and Unggumi people are the
Traditional Owners of this country. A rock shelter known as Jambarurru to Bunuba
people (S. Pannell pers. comm. 5 May 2010); Tangalma to the Unggumi (Playford
1960, 2007) and Carpenter's Gap 1 to archaeologists, is located in the Napier Range
and is thought to contain perhaps the oldest evidence of 'art' in Australia. Little has
been published on the painted rock art in this part of the Kimberley, especially when
compared to the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland. Playford's (1960, 2007) record of
some of the rock art sites shows a diversity of images in a variety of different styles –
Creation Beings including Rainbow Serpents, animals and plants, anthropomorphs,
stencils of tools, weapons and boomerangs. While not as prolific as the painted
images of Wanjina and Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro further north, the exceptional
diversity of painted rock images in the limestone ranges reflects the movement of
people, material and ideas between the coast and the desert regions through systems
of exchange that have been operating for thousands of years. [see Criterion (a)
regarding the long distance movement of marine shell beads by Kimberley Aboriginal
people some 30,000 years ago].
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