PROBLEMS OP ABORIGINAL ART IN AUSTRALIA. 211. 



suggests the supernatural, or Divinity. The markings on the 

 body resemble nothing so much as Polynesian cloth, never 

 worn by the Australian Aborigines of our time ; to whom, 

 again, blue and yellow pigments seem almost, if nt>t quite, un- 

 known. What, then, may be inferred from the absence of a 

 mouth in all the figures ? It is said to be sometimes omitted 

 in modern aboriginal face-pictures; but may not that be a 

 traditional convention ? The mouth is the most conspicuous 

 feature in the Aboriginal ; it is large, thick-lipped, and sensual 

 — a mere gobbling machine. Have we here the suggestion 

 of an attribute of divinity — of a being conspicuously possessed 

 of the more spiritual faculties of sight and smell, but superior 

 to the need of food and drink? 



Another solution of the problem has been suggested. 

 Justin Martyr, Apologia^ i, | b5, says : " The human form 

 difiers from the brutal in its uprightness and extended 

 hands, and in the nose-protuberance from between the 

 eyes, through which tlie creature breathes": and he adds, 

 " it exhibits nothing else than the shape of tlie cross." If 

 he means that the head, trunk and arms of man reveal the 

 figure of the Roman instrument of torture, one is reminded of 

 the wiseacre who traced Providential goodness in the arrange- 

 ment that rivers flowed near great towns. If the philo- 

 sophic Justin cannot be suspected of falling into this trap 

 — and I think better of him, though TertuUian {Ad. Nat., 

 i, 12) seems to quote him in that sense — one may conclude 

 that he indicated the cross made by the intersection of the 

 nose and eyes of man ; and this ivoidd be empliasised by dis- 

 regarding the mouth. May it be supposed, then, that we have 

 in these mouthless faces a Christian symbol? .But, if so, why 

 is the Latin or Greek Cross itself — and even the Tau — no- 

 where discoverable in the caves ? 



A third solution suggested is that we have here the half- 

 veiled face of Oriental women. It is hard either to contro- 

 vert, or to accept, this idea. 



Blue — the colour of the sky and ocean — may well be a hue 

 in the nimbus round a celestial head. Yellow, again, is the 

 colour of. the golden sunhght; while red, blue, and yellow, 

 with white as their combination, are the emblematic colours 

 of religion all the Avorld over, their symbolism being abun- 

 dantly employed in Holy Scripture. 



Are not these likely to have been Sacred figures ? May 

 we trace here a representation of Baiam^ — the Creator, in 

 Austrahan theology — presented by this effort of sacred art 



Q 2 



