Wednesday, 16 February 2011

Eagles Reach

As mentioned in the previous post about the importance of art, here is an example of Aboriginal Rock art, depicting an image in accordance with Aboriginal religious beliefs. 


The images found in the cave depict half-human, half-animal figures called “therianthropes”. These rare images include creatures with bird-like heads and others that are part kangaroo. The image above shows a kangaroo form.

“While therianthropes are very special depictions found across Australia, and in several regions overseas, the bird-headed creatures are a very rare find in the Sydney area. In Egypt such animal-headed figures are depicted as gods.”
See website below

According to Aboriginal religious belief, some of these composite images are of ancestral beings. However, the Aborigines don not believe human beings painted these images, rather that they were produced by ancient ancestors settling into the cave walls, while their spirits may have travelled on.

The spiritual, social and cultural beliefs of Aboriginals are learnt through storytelling, dance, music and art, as it has been for more than forty thousand years. This makes their art of particular importance to my thematic issue, because it has as much if not more relevance today, especially now that the younger generations are slowly becoming westernized and forgetting or losing interest in their cultural history, spirituality, traditions and beliefs.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/rock-a05.shtml

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