Aboriginal Australian artists. Abstract painting: ethno-motifs of the Australian aborigines
The Aborigines of Australia are the oldest living culture on Earth. And at the same time, it is one of the least studied. The English conquerors of Australia called the indigenous people "aboriginals", from the Latin "aborigene" - "from the beginning".
The Australian aborigines had original means of self-expression: among them - the technique of wood carving, applying ornaments to trees, rocks, and earth. Drawings on the skin and modeling from beeswax were less common.
Usually we see scenes Everyday life, but the natives drew their richest inspiration from myths and totemic beliefs. They experienced events in reality and connected themselves with the world of spirits through visible means. This perception brought them as close as possible to their spiritual heroes, the phenomena of the surrounding nature, which they sought to influence.
Aboriginal art was, in most cases, purposeful: it conveyed ideas rather than simply being a snapshot of reality.
Fine art was deeply symbolic in its form. It did not convey complete resemblance to the original, so many patterns and drawings seem devoid of any meaning to people of another culture (more precisely, civilization).
A feature of Aboriginal culture is original drawings on eucalyptus bark and sacred rocks.
However, it had a hidden meaning, understandable only to the initiated. The lines and designs made with ocher could increase the population of plants and animals. Faded, unattended drawings could cause a cessation of rain, failure to obtain food, and even cause death.
The number of objects of fine art of various forms varied in different regions of the continent. Very few of these appear to have been created in Tasmania, for only a few rock carvings and bark paintings survive. In drier areas, their numbers were even smaller and they were not very diverse, perhaps because the local aborigines were constantly wandering in search of food. However, even here the aborigines carved designs on the ground, rocks and bark, decorated weapons, and painted bodies for ritual ceremonies.
In Eastern Australia, rock art had an impressive area. This area was also famous for tree carvings and drawings on the ground made for initiation rites. In Northern Australia the arts really flourished.
The most expressive feature was art on the Arnland Peninsula. Here the natives spent a lot of time decorating ceremonial objects, carving and creating colorful designs on the surfaces of rocks and trees, creating a kind of masterpieces of creativity.
In addition, there were so-called “X-ray pictures”, where, along with the appearance of animals, their internal organs were depicted, as well as highly artistic decorative drawings on bark, often decorating the inside of huts, using scenes from the cult of the area.
Unfortunately, much of what existed in Aboriginal society at the beginning of European colonization has disappeared forever.
It is interesting that Australian aborigines (probably others too) cannot watch regular movies, since they have special vision: on the screen they see only individual frames replacing each other, which do not merge into movement. That is, they see everything much faster than other people who call themselves “civilized.” And the pictures they paint are incomprehensible to us. We usually see them as simply avant-garde. But for them it is realism.
A week ago my brother returned from a long trip. Vitalik lived and worked in Australia for a year. Last night, while visiting, I heard an amazing story about what my brother saw and what amazed him while he was living in Sydney and traveling through the interesting places of this delightful continent.
I would never have thought before that I could be amazed by the paintings of Australian aborigines. My brother became acquainted with local creativity in Uluru. This is a tourist village near the pink rock, considered sacred by the indigenous people. There he managed to attend a master class by a local artist. The craftswoman showed dot drawing technique using the other side of the brush.
Drawing for Australian Aborigines is a kind of meditation. They create their paintings right on the street, sitting with a canvas and a brush in their hand. Focusing on their inner world, they draw colored dots, which subsequently turn into real masterpieces. Works using this technique are fascinating and seem to exude positive energy, captivating views and thoughts for a long time.
And all you need is to listen to yourself and start drawing a cascade of multi-colored dots. But this also has its secrets.
Unusual drawings
Editorial "So simple!" I have prepared for you a selection of bright and unusual Australian Aboriginal paintings. The energy is just off the charts!
- Bright colors, laconic expressiveness of strokes, picturesque anatomical details - all this characterizes the painting of Australian aborigines, an acquaintance with which will bring pleasure to true connoisseurs of original cultures.
- Do you know what Aboriginal artists look like? In this case, the stereotype as we imagine an artist does not work at all. They look quite exotic, especially from a European point of view.
Here, for example, is a fairly famous artist from Australia, Jeannie Petyarre. Ginny's works are known all over the world and have a large number of connoisseurs. And not without reason, because these works of art are truly amazing, you can’t take your eyes off them!
Thanks to my brother, I now have a reproduction of this painting. - Aboriginal artists paint the world with dots and brushstrokes. It’s as if they create from atoms the most important thing in their life, that which has heaviest weight what they are proud of and what they live in: the country in which they were born, the land, rivers, sun and sky.
They also draw people who live nearby and whom they love, they draw women, men and children, plant and animal world, everything that surrounds them.
The secret of the paintings' energy lies in the coded symbols, which the artists write down while working on a new masterpiece, turning the subjects into bright ornamental canvases.
Knowing and understanding these symbols, you can easily “read” works of art. - Here are paintings by Australian Aboriginal artists on display in one of the world's art galleries.
They have a very special aura! These abstractions give a feeling like communicating with nature - a light breeze, the smell of grass, the chirping of birds... Very irrational, like waves of color.
Gallery visitors admit that they like to stand in front of the paintings, listening to their inner state. - Australian aboriginal artists painted and continue to paint colorful fish, animals, birds, and sometimes people, while along with external details they also depict internal organs - the spine, esophagus, heart, liver.
This is the so-called x-ray style, which reflects the interest of Aboriginal people in expanding their knowledge of the anatomy of representatives of the animal world.
In addition, such a thorough depiction of edible game was a kind of magical effect and ensured success in the hunt.
In case you decide to go on an exciting journey, we have prepared for you a fascinating selection of different countries peace. Take a few ideas with you on the road; an original approach to choosing souvenirs will bring you a lot of positive emotions.
What can you say about these unusual works of art of Australian aborigines? Personally, I don't like the soul ethnic motives!
In addition, having tried to create such, at first glance, primitive works, you understand that drawing with dots is not at all easy. This requires great concentration and a huge internal resource, because such work can only be created in good mood without allowing a single negative thought.
If you are inspired Australian art- share this article with your friends. I'm sure they will definitely find something new for themselves.
Nastya does yoga and loves traveling. Fashion, architecture and everything beautiful - that’s what a girl’s heart strives for! Anastasia is an interior designer and also makes unique floral-themed jewelry. She dreams of living in France, is learning the language and is keenly interested in the culture of this country. He believes that a person needs to learn something new all his life. Anastasia's favorite book is “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert.
In addition to the termite mounds, which were cool in principle, but of little interest to contemplate, we wanted to see something more valuable and unique that has survived to this day in Australia - Aboriginal rock paintings. But we still went to look at the drawings. They just climbed, because getting to them is not so easy.
And, seeing very, very elderly Japanese women on the rocks, who were helplessly examining the stones, not understanding how they could get out of there, I had to help!
I am always amazed by the older people I meet abroad. I myself am already a pensioner, but I often see very old tourists who climb with the help of crutches to the idols of Easter Island, or, like now, onto steep cliffs to the drawings of the aborigines. And nothing stops them from trying to see as much interesting things on this Planet as possible at the end of their lives...
And not because they have more money than our pensioners, they just haven’t lost interest in life until their gray hairs. Local Aboriginal tribes seriously protect these paintings and do not allow any research to be done with them, which is why so little is known about this rock art to this day.
And although almost every drawing has a sign with a narrative of what is depicted, it personally seems to me that all this has no scientific basis, because no one actually knows for certain what the ancient artist was trying to depict.
In June 1997, three elders and a young disciple from an Aboriginal community left their homeland of the Kimberley Plateau in Australia's far north-west and traveled to Europe to exhibit photographs of their holy rock paintings and explain what they meant.
By their actions, which until recently were punishable by death, they are trying to deny access to their holy places to livestock, which are driven here for grazing, mining companies, tourists and souvenir hunters.
Rock art is a kind of visual document for the aborigines, who never had their own written language. This is a “written law” written in their terms. The white man's law changes every year, but these drawings never change. The illustration of the transfer of an object from one person to another, for example, has never been modified, and it has always been there for the aborigines. For Aboriginal people this is the force of law.
These drawings differ significantly from European Paleolithic painting, primarily in their peculiar x-ray style with an absolutely cute name - “Mimi”. On them, what is depicted is made in the form of a skeleton and internal organs, both animals and humans.
The oldest drawings are fifty-three thousand years old, and they are the oldest known examples of rock art on Earth, but it has not yet been possible to establish this with complete certainty due to the taboo of the local population on any research.
For millions of years, Australia was part of Antarctica before breaking away and moving north toward the equator. Until now, no one knows exactly how the first aborigines appeared here, their past is still shrouded in mystery, but finds indicate that this happened about 50,000 years ago, exactly when the rock paintings date back.
Although the complex of paintings on rocks and grottoes in National Park The cockatoo, where we took photographs, is included in the World Heritage List cultural heritage, their safety is under constant threat, both from nature (forest fires, erosion) and from tourists visiting them. And in order to preserve this information, in 2013, the Australian company Maptek began work on a large-scale project - scanning Aboriginal rock paintings in Kakadu Park.
If you try to describe what is happening, captured in rock paintings, using the description on English language on the nearby sign, you get something like this...
This drawing is the most frequently photographed drawing.
Main character - Namarndjolg (No. 3). It is believed that he and his “sister” violated the law against marriage between “relatives”. Namarndjolg later became Ginga, saltwater crocodile. The “sister” in this case is not a blood sister, but a woman from that clan/totem that was forbidden to marry into the Namarndjolg clan. Even today, if a European marries an Aboriginal woman (or vice versa), he will be “enrolled” in a certain clan, so that it is clear which clan his children will belong to, and who they can/cannot marry.
Namarrgon (1)
- Lightning Man ( Lightning Man), drawn to the right of Narmarndjolg.
The "horns"/"Whiskers"/"Arc"/"Bandage" on his head are lightning bolts. He has a stone sword (near his knees) and generates thunder with his elbows.
Legend has it that Namarrgon, his wife Barrginj (2) and their children Aljurr came from the northern coast in search of a good place to live. Namarrgon now lives on top of the Lightening Dreaming plateau. His children Aljurr are lightning bolts, but they can also be the bright orange and blue grasshoppers that come at the very beginning of the rainy season. It is believed that they are looking for Namarrgon. For the aborigines, the appearance of such grasshoppers meant that it was time to look for shelter from storms. Barrginj, Namarrgon's wife, is drawn just below Namarndjolg.
Men and women (4)
in the picture they are heading to the ceremony. The breasts of nursing mothers are covered with pieces of cloth.
Guluibirr (5)
, Saratoga fish - popular for the waters of streams and rivers of those places.
This is the story of life, imprinted in stone and reaching us!
More than 50 thousand places where drawings were discovered have been discovered throughout Australia, but most of these places are kept a closely guarded secret not only from tourists, but also from the authorities.
In general, according to my observations, the aborigines are not very friendly people towards the “white” population, although this is understandable. What the colonists did here is comparable to Nazism at its worst. It was only in 1970 that the government stopped taking children away from Aboriginal people under the slogan “Assimilation of Aboriginal Australians.” These children were even called the “stolen generation.”
Today the situation with the natives has changed somewhat, but frankly speaking, this is not particularly noticeable. Among them there are a huge number of alcoholics and drug addicts, and there is even a law in the northern territories prohibiting the sale of alcohol to aborigines and there are cards with which it can be purchased in a store. They are issued, for example, to tourists upon check-in at a hotel. But on the road we also met very friendly local people, although we still tried to stay away from them (just in case) and not leave the car unattended, because “the laws are not written here” and there are no police at all. In addition, here in the north of the country we encountered a completely unprecedented case when a gas station refused to sell us gasoline!!! We were asked the question “is our situation with gasoline critical?” They answered that it was kind of running out, after which the answer followed - well, then you’ll be fine until the next gas station…………. "Gogol's silent scene"
Communication in these places is also a complete disaster, nothing works, neither mobile phones, nor navigators,Wi-
FiI don't even stutterJIn a word, you need to be very, very prepared if you want to venture to the north of the country.
I would also like to give a little warning to travelers who want to come into contact with the local aborigines without having guides (rangers) accompanying you. Australian aborigines have very strong magic, which allows them to achieve the desired effect without using anything belonging to a person (while usually it is a person’s personal thing that is a kind of conductor for influencing a person). For this purpose, special chants are used and the sorcerer’s thoughts are concentrated on the person being influenced.The sorcerer can even sing death to a person in this way. For many, Australian magic is a way to solve the problem of not having access to things related to the object. Is she strong? Yes! But none of the scientists can explain what its action is based on.Therefore, be careful!
The desire for beauty forced the Australian to cover his shield, club, boomerang with ornaments, draw patterns and images on rocks and stones, and wear jewelry on his body. The artistic aspiration was joined by ideas that endowed some of the decorations and ornaments with supernatural properties and turned them into sacred images.
Thus, works of fine art by Australians are divided into two types: sacred, religious-magical images and ornaments and drawings that satisfy aesthetic needs, but are devoid of any religious content. And again, like works of folklore and dances, there is no external difference between both types: they are completely identical in form and appearance the drawings could in one case mean some kind of sacred mythological plot, and in another - have nothing to do with mythology.
Therefore, leaving aside for now the question of the presence or absence of religious and magical significance in Australian painting and ornamentation and focusing only on its artistic and technical side, we can try to systematize the works of fine art of Australians. They can be classified by place of application, by technique, and by style.
According to the place of application, the following groups of works of art are outlined: ornamentation and decoration of the body, ornamentation of weapons and utensils, images on totemic emblems (churinga, vaninga, etc.), images on rocks and in caves.
Body decorations can be divided into permanent and temporary. Permanent decorations were primarily scars on the skin, applied during initiation ceremonies, and sometimes even from childhood. It was mainly men who were subjected to scarring, but sometimes women as well. Scars were most often applied on the chest, stomach, and in some tribes on the back and arms. Ras
the position and pattern of the scars indicated tribal affiliation, sometimes membership in a certain phratry and marriage class, and most of all the passage of initiation rites. The scar pattern is very simple: usually parallel horizontal lines across the chest or short lines in different places on the body. Australians, like most dark-skinned peoples, did not know a real skin tattoo. Temporary body decorations were much more abundant and varied. Australians decorated themselves before various corroborees, festivals and religious ceremonies. Jewelry often covered the entire body and was complemented by a headdress, sometimes large sizes and bizarre shape.
Weapons and various household items were not always decorated. Shields, as a rule, have a relief ornament on the outer surface and, in addition, are painted with ocher. The clubs of many tribes, especially in the southeast, were also decorated. Of the boomerangs, a special ornamented variety stands out - these are products of the tribes of western Queensland. Spears were only rarely decorated with carvings near the tip. Tools, axes, knife handles, troughs and other objects were rarely decorated, but more often they were left without any decoration.
Religious implements (Central Australian churigi, widespread “buzzers”, etc.) were usually covered with ornaments or images of symbolic conventional meaning.
Rock and cave paintings are found different types. Some of them are monuments ancient art, about the origin of which the Australians themselves now know nothing. The other part is the work of modern Australians. According to their significance, rock cave paintings are divided into drawings associated with religious and magical beliefs, and into simple writings that have nothing sacred or secret in the eyes of Australians. But in appearance, one does not differ from the other. The most famous rock paintings are in northwestern and central Australia. Among the southeastern tribes, the place of rock paintings was taken by images carved on the bark of trees and drawn on the ground. They, like the tribes of Central Australia, also made relief figures on the ground that had sacred meaning.
As for the technique of applying the ornament, here you can install several specific types. Spencer and Gillen give the following classification of methods of applying ornaments among the Central Australian tribes, which can be extended to the whole of Australia: carving, burning, painting with ocher, clay and coal, ornamentation with bird or plant fluff. Sometimes two or more methods were combined.
Carved ornaments are most often found on wooden things. The carving tool was a sharp flint or sometimes a possum tooth chisel; The latter, in particular, made carvings on churingas. Scarring of the body can also be attributed to the same type.
Drawings were burned out very rarely; according to Spencer and Gillen - only on magical wooden sticks.
The most common method used was to paint the surface with dyes. Their range was very limited, and the range of colors was equally limited. White clay or gypsum was given White color, ocher - yellow and red, charcoal - black. These four colors almost exhausted the range of paints used by Australians. They did not use either blue or green paint, probably due to the lack of natural dyes, and did not even have special designations for these colors in their language, calling them the same as yellow (among the Aranda - tierga , or turga ).
It is very typical for Australians to use down for decorative purposes. The fluff was taken either from birds or plants, usually white, but it was often dyed by mixing it with red ocher. Most often, Australians used down to decorate themselves before a corroboree. They covered the skin of the body, hats, etc. with down, using blood or resin as an adhesive. Whole patterns were laid out on the body with white and colored fluff.
In terms of its artistic style, Australian decorative art, for all its simplicity, is very original. According to style features, it can be divided into certain types.
In general, Australian fine art is characterized by a conventionally schematic style, with a predominance of geometric and geometrized motifs, in contrast to the realistic and object-based style of fine art, for example, the European Paleolithic or contemporary Bushmen. However, it is not the same everywhere.
According to Spencer and Gillen, good experts in the decorative arts of Australians, it is possible to draw a conditional line from north to south across the whole of Australia, so that the line will run from the southern part of the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Spencer Gulf and cut the continent into two approximately equal parts: in the western half geometric style, in the Eastern - more objective (imitative). The western half of the continent, characterized by a geometric style, in turn can be divided into the western and central parts proper: in the western half, rectangular figures and zigzags served as the favorite motifs of the ornament, in the central one - concentric circles, spirals and curved lines.
This Central Australian style of ornament is most characteristic. What is remarkable about it is mainly the tendency to completely fill the surface with a pattern. The artist usually took into account the shape of the thing being ornamented. On oblong objects - shields, churingas - wavy lines were often applied along the entire length, emphasizing the longitudinal axis of the object; or, on the contrary, it was cut into pieces by transverse stripes of alternating colors, for example red and white. But in many cases the master only sought to fill the entire field with patterns, regardless of the shape of the object. He covered it in rows wavy lines, concentric circles, etc., filling the free space entirely with white or other colored dots. When decorating the human body, its lines and contours were also taken into account: wavy or gently curving lines and stripes followed the contours of the body or crossed them. Observing the figures of decorated dancers and corroboree participants, one cannot deny the Australian artists a unique, albeit rough taste.
When an ornament covers sacred objects, churingas, or is generally associated with religious and magical ideas, then the elements of this ornament, while maintaining their purely geometric shape, acquire a conventional symbolic meaning: they mean images of totemic ancestors and individual episodes myths. Moreover, in many cases there is some similarity between the ornamental motif and the depicted object. For example, the mythical snake was almost always depicted as a wavy line or stripe. Traces and paths of movement of mythical creatures wandering around the country were transmitted dotted lines, rows of dots or short dashes; sometimes even realistically individual tracks emerged. The horseshoe-shaped figures that are constantly found in the ornament usually mean a seated person (perhaps by the resemblance to his spread legs). But more often there is no, even remote, resemblance to the depicted object, and the same motif means in one case “one thing, in another - completely” other. For example, the favorite motif of concentric circles or spirals depicts a frog on one churinga, a tree on another, a pond on the third, a person on the fourth, and a stopping place for wandering mythical ancestors on the fifth. In drawings not related to a cult, the same motifs may mean nothing at all. It is never possible to determine by the appearance of a drawing alone whether it has any symbolic meaning and which one exactly. Only those who were directly related to this drawing knew this.
It is difficult to say how the connection between individual ornamental motifs and certain mythological ideas was established, for example, concentric circles with images of frogs, etc. It is possible that there was a gradual geometrization of the design, which was once more realistic. It is also possible that the drawing never had a realistic appearance, but between one or another mythological images and their graphic symbols made an arbitrary connection.
In Western Australia, the dominant style of ornament remains geometric, but curvilinear figures are replaced by rectilinear ones.
Instead of concentric circles and spirals, we find here rectangles inscribed one into the other (the sides of which are mutually parallel); angular meanders, instead of wavy lines - zigzags. There is an assumption that this rectilinear style is a further development of the curvilinear one, and that, consequently, the tribes of Western Australia have taken a step forward in the visual arts compared to the Central Australian tribes.
In the eastern half of Australia, the geometric style in decorative art is combined, as noted above, with object images. Geometric motifs are more varied, and the compositions are more complex and strict. The most characteristic patterns are on shields and clubs. Their usual elements are parallel rows of zigzag lines, dotted and linear patterns in a chess composition.
Realistic depictions of objects were rarely found in Australian everyday life. Almost the only area where they are noted is the north-eastern part of Arnhem Land. The Berndt couple recently described not only object drawings, but also wooden plastic figures depicting men and women. The absolutely undeniable influence of visiting Indonesian sailors was felt here; this influence began several hundred years ago, and the production of carved and painted human figures became firmly established in the life of the aborigines.
In other areas, realistic images were very rare. However, when an Australian happened to make them for some reason, they sometimes turned out to be so well executed that one must assume that the Australians have deep traditions of realistic art. Taking a European pencil or charcoal in their hands, they draw on paper* extremely expressive figures of animals, everyday scenes and landscapes, full of dynamics and expression. The best examples of this style are the paintings of the Aboriginal artist Albert Namajira and the boy artists of the Carrollup School (for about them, see the chapter “The Current Situation of Australians”). These lively, spontaneous drawings contrast sharply with religious and magical images, which are dryly schematic, boring and colorless. When folk art not constrained by conventional religious tradition, it is capable of producing highly artistic examples. In general, Australian fine art is close in type to the art of the Neolithic and partly Mesolithic of Europe. Realistic images They also resemble some forms of Late Paleolithic painting.
The beginnings of positive knowledge
In bourgeois literature, backward peoples are often portrayed as ignorant “savages” whose consciousness is so saturated with gross superstitions that they are not even capable of thinking logically and cognizing the real world. This philistine opinion is deeply erroneous, which is easy to see from the example of the same Australians - one of the most backward peoples on earth.
Of course, the religious and magical ideas of the Australians are wild and absurd, but so are any religious ideas of any people, although among the peoples of Europe, for example, they are clothed in a refined, “cultural” form. “I believe because it is absurd,” is a well-known saying of Christian theologians. But in everything that does not concern religion, Australians are able to reason as sensibly and logically as we do. This has been noted more than once by conscientious observers. Teachers in Australian schools who have to deal with Aboriginal children notice that these children make progress in school subjects, not lagging behind their “white” counterparts; comrades; however, it is very rare for aborigines to obtain at least a secondary education, and even less often can they find application for their knowledge, because the path to intellectual work is closed to them.
The accumulation of positive experience and the ability to generalize and rudimentarily systematize observed facts are confirmed by the ability of Australians to perfectly adapt to the natural environment.
Australian hunters know their surrounding nature very well. The area through which a given group (clan, tribe) roams, be it a steppe, a mountainous country, a savannah or a tropical jungle, is a home for all members of the group. They know every tree, every rock, every body of water within their nomadic territory. Their knowledge in the field of applied botany is amazing: they know hundreds of species of trees, shrubs, herbs growing in the area, they know all of them beneficial features and how to use them. Some plants provide food (roots, tubers, seeds, etc.), others provide material for crafts; Australians know the technical features of each tree species as well as any forest engineer. The ability of Australian women to process various plants and prepare food from them is amazing: they neutralize plants that are poorly edible and even poisonous in the wild through complex processing. This peculiar practical chemistry can cause surprise. Australian hunters' knowledge of the animal world is no less great: they know all the animals and birds within their area, they know their characteristics and habits, traces and routes of movement. A hunter knows how to find, outwit and catch even the most cautious and timid animal.
The amazing ability of Australians to navigate the deserted desert, to find a road, water, and food in it, has also been noted more than once.
The wandering life of a hunter was by no means, as is always thought, an unconditional brake on the development of positive knowledge. On the contrary, in some respects it favored the expansion of this knowledge. The mobility of Australian hunting groups, constantly communicating with each other, frequent migrations, hikes, expeditions, inter-tribal gatherings, exchange relations - all this contributed to expanding the mental horizons of the Australian aborigine.
It is necessary to dwell separately on the issue of traditional medicine of Australians. The chapter on religion talked about the witchcraft practices of their healers. But Australians also know and use various means of rational medicine. Bourgeois researchers have so far paid little attention to them, being more interested in the witchcraft and magical practices of the Australians. But the work of the Viennese ethnographer and doctor of medicine Erich Drobets, “Medicine among the Natives of Australia,” collected a lot of very interesting material on this topic.
Australians treat their sick, as well as decrepit old people, very carefully, look after them, and, if necessary, carry them on themselves when migrating. These facts, like the entire medical practice of Australians, refute the idea of them as “rude savages”, widespread in bourgeois reactionary literature.
It turns out that some of the medical and surgical treatments used by Australians are quite rational. This is especially clear in relation to the techniques of primitive surgery: they know how to treat wounds, fractures and dislocations well and do it with their own means, without even turning to healers and sorcerers.
Clay, fat from a snake or other animals, bird droppings, resin from some trees, milky juice of ficus plants, stems ground into pulp, sometimes mixed with ocher, etc. are applied to a bleeding wound, sometimes with an admixture of ocher, etc. Human urine and mother's milk are also used to heal wounds. Some of these substances are also used for tumors and abscesses. Drobets indicates that some of these folk remedies are also recognized by European medicine. Dress wounds with soft tree bark. Charcoal, ash, cobwebs, and iguana fat are used as a hemostatic agent. When bones are broken, bark bandages and wooden splints are applied. However, as sources indicate, the period of imposition is not long enough, which, however, is quite understandable in conditions of nomadic life.
Snake bites are treated by sucking, pulling the bitten part of the body, burning the wound, or making a circular incision. For some ailments, for example, headaches, rheumatism, the patient is bled using incisions.
The diseased tooth is removed by tying it with a cord.
Sometimes the pain is relieved by applying leaves of plants containing narcotic substances (“snake grass”, etc.).
There is information, although little reliable, about real surgical operations, for example, for wounds in the abdomen.
Skin diseases are treated by applying clay, red ocher, tincture of certain types of bark, and washing with urine.
For inflammation and feverish heat, cold lotions are used. For colds, rheumatic pains and other cases, the patient is forced to sweat; some southeastern tribes arrange a real steam bath. Having dug a hole, they heat it with hot stones, put raw leaves and branches on them, and build a roof of poles over the hole; the well-wrapped patient lies down there. In some cases, the patient was buried for four to five hours in damp soil, with water added (kamilaroi), or in sand (gevegal, yualai).
For stomach diseases, laxatives (honey, eucalyptus resin, castor oil) and fixatives (various tinctures, orchid bulb, clay, etc.) were used.
The pharmacopoeia of Australians is generally quite rich. They know the healing properties of many plants. Walter Roth lists 40 species of plants used for medicinal purposes.
The use of many of the traditional medicines mentioned is combined with magical techniques, usually with spells. But this does not prevent Australian folk medicine from remaining rational at its core, because it is built on positive folk experience.
Before you learn how to draw an Indian, I should tell you a little about the subject. The Indian is a red-skinned bro, so named because of the absurd mistake of Mr. Columbus (Famous, who did not even suspect that he had discovered not India at all, but America). According to generally accepted concepts, the Indian always looks thoughtful, smokes a pipe and wears a feather kokoshnik. When a stranger sets foot on their land, the Indian (slapping his palm on his lips and making sound O-O-O) runs headlong to his tribe, where they kindle and sharpen their spears and arrows. But when strangers present them with overseas gifts, the Indian buries the hatchet. Later, the leader of the tribe and the guests sit in a circle, in the most customized wigwam, and light a pipe of peace (most likely with some unusual herb, since the leader very often sees all sorts of visions prophesying evil).
The Indian is perfectly adapted to life, knows how to kill animals with his tomahawk and skin them, grow corn and make popcorn from it. An Indian woman plucks poor birds and sews dream catchers from their feathers. The female Indian is most often beautiful, judging by the cartoon Pocahontas.
Currently, there are practically no Indians left as such. A special court order was adopted to move all Indians to museums, and to build naphtha derricks, factories and clubs with poker and courtesans in their habitat. And a little later, the blacks rebelled and filled all of America. So it goes.
How to draw an Indian with a pencil step by step
Step one. To begin with, let’s designate the person’s position. Step two. We draw the elements of the face: eyes, nose, mouth, designate the plumage. Step three. Let's add hair and strokes all over the body. We'll do the same with feathers. Using shading we will create shadows. Step four. Let's erase the auxiliary lines and detail the objects. Somehow it should work out this way. You can also color with colored pencils. In addition, we have other interesting lessons, for example.
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