Australia: The Wandjina Image

The use of the Wandjina image (the Aboriginal Rain Spirit or Cloud Being found in many rock shelter and cave art sites in the Kimberley region, Western Australia) is becoming increasingly controversial.

This is a detail from a bark painting by a well-known artist (RK, deceased, c.1927-2008). She painted many bark Wandjinas and certainly had the right to use the image, as did other members of her family.

Here is a poem about the Wandjina Rain Spirit:


Mamadai and Wanalirri
Where wandjina shelter.
The god-like face on rock and cave,
Mouthless image of creator.
Round eyes on bark, on canvas, slate:-
Make the rains come soon, come late.


I. M. Crawford, in "The Art of the Wandjina" (OUP, Melbourne, 1968), wrote:

"These Wandjina spirits have considerable powers and the Aborigines are careful to observe a certain amount of protocol when they approach the paintings, fearing that if they do not, the spirits might take their revenge...Should the Wandjinas be offended, the Aborigines believe that they will take their revenge by calling up the lightning to strike the offender dead, or the rain to flood the land and drown the people, or the cyclone with its gales which devastate the country".

It is not as if people hadn't been warned.