Indigenous Gallery

An band of yellow ochre in a pit at the Granites

An band of yellow ochre in a pit at the Granites. Aboriginal people used ochre for ceremonial body painting and rituals and to paint artifacts and message diagrams, using different coloured pigments: some ochre is heated up, colour varying with temperature. Once prepared, the ochre was mixed with a binder such as garliwun (tree resin), bush honey, egg yolks or kangaroo blood. The artist was then ready to begin painting. Mount Magnet, Northern Goldfields, Western Australia

Pointed stick being burnished with a file at the Barunga Festival

Pointed stick being burnished with a file at the Barunga Festival, cultural celebration and music festival held in June every year in the settlement 80 km southwest of Katherine. Barunga, Roper River region, Northern Territory, Australia

© Nick Rains/AUSCAPE All rights reserved

Aboriginal Community, Australian, Bamyili, Barunga Festival, Beswick Creek, Close Up, Craft, Detail, Dexterity, Festival, Holding, Indigenous, Not Model Released, One Person, Remote, Tool, Top End, Township, Traditional Knowledge, Unrecognisable Person, Village, Woodwork

Group of people bathing in a waterhole on Beswick Creek during the Barunga Festival

Group of people bathing in a waterhole on Beswick Creek during the Barunga Festival, cultural celebration and music festival held in June every year in the settlement 80 km southwest of Katherine. Barunga, Roper River region, Northern Territory, Australia

© Nick Rains/AUSCAPE All rights reserved

Aboriginal Community, Australian, Bamyili, Barunga Festival, Bathers, Beswick Creek, Exuberance, Exuberant, Fun, Indigenous, Jumping, Landscape, Leaping, Medium Group Of People, Not Model Released, Play, Remote, Scenery, Swimming, Top End, Township, Tropical, Village, Water, Winter