20-i MATHEWS — AUSTRALIAN ROCK CARVIXrxS. I ^lay 7, 



Fig. 34. This small figure is also on the same line of rocks as 

 Fig. 31. It is one foot seven inches high, and the same distance 

 from hand to hand. The head is rather bird-shaped, and has an 

 eye ; there are incised curved lines reaching from the arms to the 

 head on each side, the meaning of which I am unable to suggest. 



This figure is most likely intended to denote a "piccaninny" or 

 young aborigine, because there was room on the rock to draw a much 

 larger figure if it had been desired. We frequently, I might say 

 mostly, find figures of men drawn in caves which are not larger than 

 this, but in such cases the small -sized figures are chosen on account 

 of want of room on the cave walls. ^ 



Fig- 35- This carving is on a continuation of the same flat rock as 

 Fig. 31 and is another of those objects found in aboriginal draw- 

 ings the precise identity of which it is difficult to arrive at. It is 

 probably intended for the echidna'^ or porcupine, but I would, how- 

 ever, throw out the suggestion that it may be intended to represent 

 a dilly bag. Some color is lent to this view from the lines drawn 

 across it ; the dot, which may represent the eye, is, however, against 

 the latter theory. 



Fig. ^6. This carving is delineated on the continuation of the 

 same flat rocks as the preceding, and represents a female two feet 

 seven inches high and about the same distance across from hand to 

 hand.^ The arms are very long for the size of the body, and there 

 are four fingers on each hand, but the feet are not shown. In the 

 centre of the head is a small hole or dot, and there are two similar 

 holes on the chest, but whether they were put there by the native 

 artist or are merely water-worn indentations in the rock is uncer- 

 tain. Above the figure there is a bird-like object which at the 

 nearest points is two and a half inches from the head. This may 

 be intended as an ornament to the head, or it may be where some 

 other figure has been commenced and abandoned. The breasts are 

 drawn in the usual way adopted by native artists, and there is a 

 short incised line apparently intended to represent thejfudes. 



^ A few feet from this figure is a carving of an iguana seven feet two inches 

 long, shown as Fig. 9, PI. 9, jT'roi:. Roy. Soc. Victoria, Vol. vii (N. S.), p. 153. 



'■^ For similar carvings see Figs, 11 to 17, PI. 2, American Anthropologist, 

 viii, 276. 



3 For a colossal carving of a woman nearly twelve feet tall, the reader is re- 

 ferred to Fig. 2, PI. 16, of my paper on "The Rock Paintings and Carvings of the 

 Australian Aborigines," Jour. Anthrop. Inst., London, Vol. xxv, pp. 145-163. 



