Abstract
Prehistoric Rock Pictures in Dutch New Guinea ROCK PAINTINGS collected in the islands off the coast of the Onia Peninsula, Dutch New Guinea, by members of the Frobenius Expedition in 1932 have been described and figured by J. Röder (Man, Nov. 1939). The paintings—there are no engravings—have been executed in grooves and hollows of the cliffs, washed out by sea-spray, which form a series of galleries, following the coast-line at a height of two to four metres above high-water mark. Apart from quite recent drawings, three layers can be distinguished. For the most ancient, red paint is used. In this layer four styles can be recognized, though there is a far-reaching uniformity of subject. In the earliest style, however, the most characteristic subject is the silhouette of the hand, with silhouettes of feet and arms. The hands occur in dozens on the same wall—right hands, left hands, hands of children, but only rarely with mutilated fingers. In aboriginal tradition these mark the wanderings of the ancestral immigrants, who were blind. In later styles of the red paint layer, the hands are absent, but other subjects are much the same—fish, trepang, crocodile, lizards, and man, at times scarcely to be distinguished from an animal. Often, apart from the big find spots, the human figures are surmounted by a large headdress like a pointed nightcap, the hands being raised as in adoration. These are now said to be representations of ancestors. The sex is prominently characterized; and sometimes the figure is so abbreviated that only the sign of sex remains. Here is evidently a fertility cult, which survives to-day in the use of wooden figures. Subjects in black paint point to a different, culture in which the boat is prominent—previously unrepresented, but now taking a part in cult. There is in this layer a progressive degeneration in style and execution. Paintings in white aro mostly superimposed on the red, as if a comment were intended. Caves with pictures of both the red and black periods are found. A cave deposit on excavation revealed three cultural layers, of which two contained pottery, but the lowest flint implements only. A figure on a stalactite pillar with arms upraised was evidently an ancestral figure or deity to which, presumably, offerings had been made on a stone showing traces of red from the second cultural layer. Burials in the semi-caves were made up to represent boats.
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Research Items. Nature 144, 946–947 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144946a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144946a0