As part of the unit on Australian Aboriginal art and culture we decided to have ago at cave painting, well rock painting to be precise. We used the dot painting technique that was originally used in impermanent sand art works. These were used to tell the story of their land to the younger generations. The images formed a language realised through art used to assist story based learning.

Lani’s Dreaming inspired Lizard

Lilly’s Dreaming inspired Kangaroo.

While they were painting I read this book:

Which is a gorgeous book that made me want to jump onto a plane straight away and fly off to Arnhem land.

I have found some pretty cool resources for the book online here and here so we will work though a few of these activities over during the week. Should be fun.

We read Jeanie Adams book Pigs and Honey. The book tells the tale of a family living in the Aboriginal community at Aurukun, a town on the cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland. The story follows the family as they go bush, hunting wild pigs and collecting wild honey. It’s the sort of family feast that makes you want to grab all your relatives and head out camping. As part of the feast the Mum cooks a damper to eat the wild honey with. We don’t have a tent and it’s getting a bit cold to just hang out under the stars so we thought we would have a go at the damper and honey part.

Here’s how.

pre heat oven to 180 degrees

• 2 cups of Self Raising flour
• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 Tsp salt (ours was a little too salty but that may have been because we let Lilly do this step)
• Water to mix
• You can also try adding sultanas or herbs
• To make it, mix the salt and the flour together then form a well in the centre. Add  water a little at a time till you have a firm dough. Kneed on a board then place on a lightly floured tray and bake on the top shelf of the oven for 10-15 min then turn over and cook for a further 10-15 min. If you are camping it can be wrapped around a stick and cooked in the ashy bits of the camp fire, so much more exciting. When its done it will be really hard on the outside and really only tastes good if its smothered in butter and honey.

Hunt around in your backyard for coloured rocks, not the type you buy from a garden centre these ones need to be naturally occurring Australian rocks. If your garden is a formal manicured one you may need to go rock hunting in your local park. Put a couple of similar coloured rocks into a mortar and pestle. I explained to the kids that the aboriginal people would have used a grinding stone but since we didn’t have one on us the mortar and pestle would have to suffice.

Once your rocks are all smashed up nicely, you need a fairly even powder or you will have lumpy paint, a little water is added to form a paste.

A little more grinding and stirring is needed to break up any remaining lumps. Then you can add more water to thin the mixture to a paint like consistency.

Alanah’s Lizard

We chose to copy images of cave paintings and rock carvings found in our local area. This helped the kids really get a feel for the traditional aboriginal style of representing the natural world around them.

Elijah’s Snake

We also used Gum leaves and grasses to make a very light brown and a green coloured paint. There is a yellow rock and dried white clay that can make very effective colours but we didn’t have any lying around.

Lillian’s Echidna

Oh and the cutest thing, Lilly calls these little guys A Kanidnas, she just can’t get her tongue around the correct pronunciation.

When we went to see the terrifying sea monster and all his friends we also watched a  really cool performance by a company called Erth. The play was live performance puppetry showcasing characters from an Australian production called Nargun and the stars. What we saw was called I, Bunyip and was more like watching a wild life ranger at an animal display than watching theatre only the animals they brought out to let the kids pat were puppets.

This is what Lani wrote about it:

I, Bunyip

On Sunday we went to the museum and saw I, Bunyip and we saw Aboriginal Spirit creatures. There were Potkooroks that can make you see in a different way and Nyols look like half bat half owl and Yawk Yawks are fresh water mermaids. I like Potkoorok the best.

and Lilly wrote:

SUNDAY

Why. When. I, Bunyip

Turongs

Potkooroks

Nyols

But that’s Ok because she’s little, and Eli wrote:

I saw Yawk Yawks and everything was not real. They were puppets. The puppeteers were wearing black clothes because they didn’t want to be seen. I did not like it because it was scary.