Australian aboriginal cave paintings in ochre tell of their tribal life in western New South Wales. Finger, brush and stencil techniques are used to portray hunting kangaroos and emus, corroborees, magic and ritual maps. Special equipment is used by a field party to copy the paintings to scale for detailed scientific record and research. A cave-floor is carefully excavated to find implements used by the cave dwellers, and charcoal samples taken for dating tests. Music from “Namatjira” by Clive Douglas.
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
011905
Language
English
Subject categories
Aboriginal Australia → Aboriginal Australians - Social life and customs
Aboriginal Australia → Archaeology - Australia
Aboriginal Australia → Art, Aboriginal Australian
Crafts & Visual Arts → Aboriginal Australians - Painting
Crafts & Visual Arts → Art, Aboriginal Australian
Crafts & Visual Arts → Rock paintings
Documentary → Documentary films - Australia
Educational & Instructional → Instructional
History → Aboriginal Australians - Antiquities
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
16mm film; Access Print (Section 1)
16mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)