Oceania Art Assignment Aboriginal and Maori

Aboriginal Indigenous Australian art is based on traditional culture. It has a history which covers over 30,000 years, and represents a large range of native traditions and styles.

Art is one of the key rituals of Aboriginal culture and was and still is, used to mark territory, record history, and tell stories about the “dreamtime”. Similar to how Christians have their own story of the creation of the Earth, the Dreamtime is how the Aboriginals believed the world was created.

Three common types of Aboriginal Art. The cross-hatch or X-ray Art Dot Art where intricate patterns and/or stories are created using dots Stencil Art which uses the motif of a hand print. We’re doing the Dot Art.

A little about Dot Art….. In 1971–1972, art teacher Geoffrey Bardon encouraged Aboriginal people in Papynya, north west of Alice Springs to put their Dreamings onto canvasThe dots were used to cover secret-sacred ceremonies. Originally, the paintings were used in addition to the oral history of Aboriginal Dreamings and so they were made for cultural purposes and not the art market. The dots are, in effect, a form of camouflage. . These stories had previously been drawn on the desert sand, and were now given a more permanent form.

Maori Tattooing

History According to archaeological evidence, tattooing came to New Zealand from Eastern Polynesian culture. The bone chisels used for tattooing can be found in archaeological sites of various ages in New Zealand, as well as in some early Eastern Polynesian sites. The head was considered the most sacred part of the body, and because tattooing caused blood to run the tattoo craftsmen, or "tohunga-ta-oko", were very important persons.

All high-ranking Māori were tattooed, and those who went without tattoos were seen as persons of no social status. Tattooing started at puberty, accompanied by many rites and rituals. In addition to making a warrior attractive to women, the tattoo practice marked both rites of passage and important events in a person's life. There were certain prohibitions during the tattooing process, and for the facial tattoo in particular sexual intimacy and the eating of solid foods were prohibited. In order to overcome this, liquid food and water was drained into a wooden funnel, to ensure that no contaminating product came into contact with the swollen skin. This was also the only way the tattooed person could eat until his or her wounds healed. The full faced tattoo was very time consuming, and a good tattoo craftsman would carefully study a person's bone structure before commencing his art.

Do NOT jump to judgement… Maori are prepared to fight to protect their traditions, to hide them, if necessary, from the bored, fascinated eyes of a world hungry for the 'exotic'...They want to show them (others who are willing to understand) that there is important, sacrosanct meaning behind the beauty of the designs, in order to further protect the art from those who look purely out of horrified curiosity or who attempt to appropriate the patterns for uses other than those that are personal or sacred...

Let’s get this party started…..