Ochre
Ochre as material and as trade: the pits and quarries, ground pigment, grinding stones, and the routes the colour travelled. Thin here by measurement rather than neglect, because the free photographic record of ochre practice barely exists and no amount of searching produced it.
Part of Australia
50 moments in this segment.
- - Men in possum skin cloaks at Penshurst. A group of Aboriginal men wearing possum skin cloaks and blankets, photographed at Penshurst in western Victoria in 1858 by Antoine Fauchery. Cloaks were sewn from dozens of pelts and incised on the skin side with designs then rubbed with ochre. A further figure at the left of the plate has been blotted out and only a blur remains.
- - Breastplate given to Billy Hippie. An engraved brass breastplate presented to Billy Hippie, an Aboriginal stockworker at Minnon Station, showing him riding down runaway cattle. Colonists issued these crescent plates, often called king plates, to individuals they chose to designate as leaders, which cut across the authority structures actually in place. This one is held by the National Museum of Australia.
- - 93 - 148245 - Unknown artist 'Shield' pre 1940. 1940 held by National Gallery of Australia.
- - Grinding stones. A grinding stone and muller displayed at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. The same equipment ground seed into flour and ochre into pigment, and grinding hollows worn into rock outcrops are among the most durable traces of occupation.
- - 163773- Treahna Hamm 'Barmah nurrtja biganga (Barmah Forest Possum Skin Cloak)' 2005. 1999 by four Aboriginal women. The footage depicts events of 2005. Filed as a pigment and object record, from footage of 2005 held by National Gallery of Australia.
- - Painted shelter in the Grampians. Ochre painting on rock in Grampians National Park in western Victoria, known to Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung people as Gariwerd. The Grampians hold the largest concentration of rock art sites recorded in southern Australia.
- - Mount William stone axe quarry. Waste stone and unfinished blanks at the Mount William quarry in Victoria, where greenstone was worked into axe heads. The quarry belonged to Wurundjeri families who controlled access to it, and axe blanks from Mount William have been found across hundreds of kilometres of south eastern Australia. It shows the same trade system that moved ochre.
- - An ochre quarry in central Australia. A working face at a central Australian site from which a range of coloured ochres was obtained. Quarries like this were nodes on long distance exchange networks, and pigment from a single source has been identified in objects found many hundreds of kilometres away.
- - River red gum by the ochre pits. The trunk of a river red gum growing near the ochre pits on Namatjira Drive in the Northern Territory. The road is named for Albert Namatjira, the Western Arrernte watercolourist who painted this Country and who died in 1959 aged 57.
- - Kenniff Cave artefacts - Dr Michael Westaway. 2009.
- - Abe Muriata - Basket craftsman. 2009.
- - 94 - 145346 - Unknown artist 'Jawun shield' 19th-20th Century. 2010.
- - Artefacts on a Martu linyji. Pestles, pounding stones and grinding stone fragments left on a termite pavement, called a linyji, photographed by Fiona Walsh in 1987. These are the tools of seed grinding and food preparation, and grinding stones were also the equipment used to reduce lumps of ochre to usable powder. Martu families were removed from this Country in the 1960s and the artefacts stayed where they were set down.
- - Aboriginal Arrernte Shield by art tribal gallery.com. 2013.
- - Stencilled hand at Yourambulla. A hand stencil in the caves at Yourambulla in South Australia, made by spraying red ochre from the mouth around a hand held flat on the rock. The work is Adnyamathanha and may be thousands of years old. Stencilling leaves a negative image, so what survives is the space the hand occupied rather than a drawing of it.
- - Stone Knapping. 2013.
- - Coolamons at the Australian Museum. Carrying vessels known as coolamons, held by the Australian Museum in Sydney. A coolamon is cut from a single piece of wood or bark and used to carry water, food, seed and infants. The outer surfaces were commonly worked with incised designs and coated with ochre.
- - Ochre Pits, West MacDonnell Ranges. Banded rock faces at the ochre pits on Namatjira Drive in the West MacDonnell Ranges of the Northern Territory. The seams here run through white, yellow and deep red, and the material was quarried by Western Arrernte people and traded well beyond the range. The site remains significant to Arrernte people and only part of it is open to visitors.
- - Defining Moments: Indigenous stone tools. 2016.
- - Mixing the Ochre (AIATSIS possum skin cloak). ), published by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and concerning Victoria. Only about seven documented original possum-skin cloaks survive, and the practice was revived from 1999 by four Aboriginal women. This record is filed under Yorta Yorta Country. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in 2017.
- - Making the Resin (AIATSIS possum skin cloak). ), published by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and concerning Victoria. Only about seven documented original possum-skin cloaks survive, and the practice was revived from 1999 by four Aboriginal women. The subject sits on Yorta Yorta Country. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in 2017.
- - Burning the Design (AIATSIS possum skin cloak). ), published by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and concerning Victoria. Only about seven documented original possum-skin cloaks survive, and the practice was revived from 1999 by four Aboriginal women. The subject sits on Yorta Yorta Country. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in 2017.
- - The AIATSIS Possum Skin Cloak. 1999 by four Aboriginal women. The people named here are Yorta Yorta. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in 2017.
- - Canoe scar on a river red gum. A tree near Mildura in Victoria carrying the scar where a sheet of bark was cut away to make a canoe for use on the Murray River. The tree was removed to the Mildura Visitor Centre. The bark was taken in a single piece and the tree kept growing around the wound, which is why the scars are still readable more than a century later.
- - Ancient Aboriginal artefacts uncovered in Australian 'Antiques Roadshow'. ', published by ABC News (Australia). Ground and flaked stone tools are among the most widely recovered Aboriginal artefacts. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by ABC News (Australia) in 2018.
- - Battle over priceless indigenous shield 'stolen' by Captain Cook's men | ABC News. Battle over priceless indigenous shield 'stolen' by Captain Cook's men, published by ABC News (Australia). Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by ABC News (Australia) in 2019.
- - Making ochre at luyni mungalina - This Place. 2019.
- - How to read a possum skin cloak. 1999 by four Aboriginal women. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Museums Victoria in 2019.
- - Aboriginal Women's Fiber Art: Dilly Bags. 2020.
- - How to make a Dilly Bag. 2020.
- - Aboriginal Australian Stone Tools and Knapping. 2020.
- - Djon Mundine OAM: Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement. 2020.
- - Making of the Bush Tucker Possum Skin Cloak. 1999 by four Aboriginal women. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Museum of Brisbane in 2020.
- - Carol McGregor: Possum Skin Cloaks. 1999 by four Aboriginal women. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Kluge, Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection in 2020.
- - Family HIstory Art inspitred by Aboriginal Possum Skin Cloaks. 1999 by four Aboriginal women. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Anah Creet in 2020.
- - Woomeras with Jared Thomas. 2020.
- - Spear Throwers. 2020.
- - SBS Small Business Secrets - My Dilly Bag. 1980, and NITV began free-to-air broadcasts under SBS in 2012. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Indigenous Business Australia in 2021.
- - Colour bands in an ochre seam. A close view of layered ochre in a range of earthy colours from white through yellow and orange to red and brown. Ochre is iron oxide bearing clay, and the colour depends on the mineral and on whether it has been heated. It was used as paint on bark, rock and skin, as a coating that protected wooden weapons from termites, and as a medicine.
- - Using Wadawurrung ochre in art – Deanne Gilson | Heal Country | NAIDOC Week | ABC Australia. Using Wadawurrung ochre in art , Deanne Gilson, published by ABC Australia and concerning Victoria. NAIDOC Week is observed nationally each July. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by ABC Australia in 2021.
- - CIAF Weaving Workshop: Rion Savage. (CIAF) and concerning Queensland. Fibre work and weaving traditions continue across many nations. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) in 2021.
- - Making a living on the plains, Stone tools and archaeology of Aboriginal societies. 2022.
- - Museum Collections in Motion: Eva's journey during WWII. 1999 by four Aboriginal women. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Museums Victoria in 2022.
- - Reclaiming the boomerang. 9,500 years. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Aboriginal Art Co in 2022.
- - Alice Springs Macdonnel Ranges, NT || Ochre Pits, Palm Valley, Albert Namatjira, Redbank Gorge. Alice Springs Macdonnel Ranges, NT, published by Paul Wheel Drive and concerning Northern Territory. Albert Namatjira was granted citizenship rights in 1957 and convicted in 1958 of supplying rum to an Aboriginal person, an offence that existed only because of the racial regime he alone had been exempted from. He died in 1959, aged 57. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Paul Wheel Drive in 2022.
- - How a boomerang works | Great Australian Stuff | ABC TV + iview. How a boomerang works, published by ABC Entertainment. Most boomerangs were not returning types, and the oldest surviving wooden example, from Wyrie Swamp in South Australia, is estimated at 9,500 years. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by ABC Entertainment in 2023.
- - OCHRE PITS | WEST MACDONNELL RANGES | CENTRAL AUSTRALIA WALKING TOUR | ALICE SPRINGS TRIP. OCHRE PITS, published by THE TRAVEL JUNKIE and concerning Northern Territory. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by THE TRAVEL JUNKIE in 2025.
- - 🔥 BOOMERANG DE GUERRA: EL ARMA PRIMITIVA AUSTRALIANA QUE SE VOLVIÓ DEMASIADO LETAL. 9,500 years. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by LA FORJA DEL PASADO in 2026.
- - How Did Humans Invent the Boomerang?. 9,500 years. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Origin Mind in 2026.
- - ¿Por qué inventaron los humanos el bumerán?. Why did humans invent the boomerang, published by Mente Increible and concerning South Australia. Most boomerangs were not returning types, and the oldest surviving wooden example, from Wyrie Swamp in South Australia, is estimated at 9,500 years. Filed as a pigment and object record, posted by Mente Increible in 2026.