WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

space from Wanjina to Wanjina.
In order to sustain the ongoing cycle of life, members of the Wanjina-
Wunggurr community continue to engage in a range of ritual practices
established in Lalai (The Dreaming). While Wanjina-Wunggurr people
believe that the Wanjina 'put' themselves onto rock surfaces as paintings,
they also believe that as the human descendents of these Wanjina, it is their
duty to maintain the 'brightness' or 'freshness' of the paintings by re-touching
them with charcoal and pigments (Mowaljarlai and Malnic 1993; Redmond
2001; Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005; Blundell et al. 2009). By keeping the
paintings 'fresh' the world will remain fertile – the annual rains arrive, plants
and animals will reproduce, and child spirits will remain available in
whirlpools and waterholes throughout the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland.
There is no other Indigenous society in northern or central Australia, indeed
anywhere in Australia, where a single class of Creator Being, the Wanjina,
depicted as a distinct rock art figure, has such a significant and multifaceted
role or set of associated meanings and practices (Blundell et al. 2009).
The Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, where the painted images on rock and
other features in the land, sea and sky, including natural rock formations
and man-made stone arrangements, are manifestations of the Wanjina and
the Wunggurr Snake, are of outstanding heritage value to the nation
under criterion (i) because of their importance as part of Indigenous
tradition.
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