The Confessions of a BeachcomberBanfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
History
The Confessions of a Beachcomber
Banfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
Dunk Island (Qld.); Natural history -- Australia -- Queensland
A few minutes' exertion lands one at the portal of the studio, which is
of the lean-to order of architecture, a granite boulder having one
fairly vertical face being overshadowed by a much higher rock having a
dip of about 60 degrees.
Here originally there were five exhibits. Two have weathered away almost
to nothingness, some faint streaks and blotches of red earth, in which
medium all the pictures have been executed, alone remaining. Those
subjects that are readily decipherable are mutilated after the style of
certain much-prized antiques.
Of those which have successfully withstood the ravages of time, two
apparently represent lizards, and the third seems to portray a
monstrosity--a human being with a rudimentary tail. A German philosopher
might possibly build upon this embryonic tail a theory to prove that the
Australian aboriginal is indeed and in fact the missing link, and
thereby excel in ethnological venture those who merely recognise in him
the relic from a prehistoric age of man. Could it not be argued that the
picture reveals an act of unconscious cerebration--an instinctive
knowledge of ancestors with tails?
However that may be, the unconscious artist took further artless
liberties with the human form divine. He had been at pains, too, to
smooth down the face of the rock for the reception of the unshaded daubs
of terra-cotta, using peradventure the flat stone upon which he was wont
to bruise the hot and biting roots of the aroid (COLOCASIA MACRORRHIZA)
which formed part of his diet. The utensil lies there at the entrance
where he left it; the plants grow in profusion close by among the rocks;
but of the artist there is no record, save the crude and grotesque
figures in fading red on the grey granite.
Most of the central figure is clearly discernible; but parts of the
outline have become blurred and irregular. Tradition says that all the
figures once had black heads--the only attempts at the introduction of a
second colour--but no traces of the black heads are now visible. They must
have succumbed to the tender but irresistible assaults of Time long ago.
In one case, fact seems to belie tradition, for there exist faint
suggestions of a red head--and a red-headed black is as rare as a black
with a tail; but the traces are so extremely vague and indeterminate as
to render any attempt at restoration hopeless. But does not this
obscurity and partial dismemberment lend an air of antiquity, much
prized elsewhere, to these savage frescoes?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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