Description:
Since the earliest colonial days in Australia there have been a large number of reports of what have variously been described as stone carving, rock sculptures, earthen sculptures and rock engravings by Aboriginal people. The most prominent of these has been on the wooden sculptures emanating from northern Australia. Few anthropologists have minutely reported on what McCarthy described as examples of Aboriginal 'plastic art'. Aboriginal sculptures 'crudely fashioned' from beeswax, some of them 'made to represent human figures' but more generally 'modelled' to represent 'kangaroos, turtles, goannas, crocodiles and birds'. One of the most widely reported earthen carvings in what is now known as Victoria was described as the Challicum Bunyip. This was reputed to be an outline of a creature known as a bunyip, which was gouged into the ground. Other accounts of life-sized Aboriginal sculpture in Victoria are not numerous but certainly extant.
Description:
'Scots Under the Southern Cross' is a collection of essays from speakers at the Scottish Symposium held in Ballarat 9-11 May 2014. The chapters reflect the many styles, themes and formats embracing the Scottish Diaspora in Australia. This publication complements the Art Gallery of Ballarat Exhibition 'For Auld Lang Syne: Images of Scottish Australia from First Fleet to Federation'. The five interrelated sections of 'Scots Under the Southern Cross' are: 'Retrospect', 'The Scots in Aboriginal Australia', 'Biographical Studies of Scottish Australians', 'Scottish Artists on Australia' and 'Commemorating Scotland in Australia'. The essays tell the stories of Scottish immigrants and their successful establishment of economic and cultural networks in Australia. These chapters hopefully will form a basis for expansion into research of the Scottish diaspora and the way the Scots and their descendants have contributed to adapted to Australian conditions.