Resistance and remembering through rock art: Contact-period rock art in Wardaman country, Northern Australia

Abstract

Although notions of resistance are not new in rock art research concerning cross-cultural colonial encounters, this study shows how multiple dimensions of Indigenous resistance can be explored through a multidisciplinary analysis of rock art in northern Australia. The study explores the intersections between introduced “Western” and pre-existing “traditional” motifs in rock art near Yingalarri waterhole in Wardaman Country, Northern Territory, analysing the visual conventions and superimpositions with an eye towards Wardaman epistemological engagements with rock art and experiences of colonial occupation. These intersections reveal further dimensions of Wardaman responses to colonial occupation, including the negotiation of shifting inter-regional relationships and engagements with Country as well as the continued emphasis on inherited artistic practices. The study also explores the continuing role that rock art, and its interpretation, plays in Indigenous colonial resistance. Wardaman discussions of introduced motifs documented during the 1988–1991 Earthwatch project brought the paintings out of the past, giving them contemporary significance via kinship connections and narratives of survival that challenge colonial efforts to erase Indigenous experiences of early colonial contact and occupation. The paper contributes to archaeological understandings of inter-regional connections between northern Australian rock art regions and rock art production and discussion as a means for Aboriginal resistance and remembrance after the arrival of Europeans.