Decorated Boab Nuts: from rock wall to shop shelf
Michele Lang

Often described in the past as 'mere' tourist art, as lacking in authenticity without any intrinsic or genuine artistic value, boab nuts that have been incised or otherwise decorated by Aboriginal people living in the Kimberley region of Western Australia are undergoing reassessment. Since the recent sale of Jack Wherra's extraordinary incised boab nuts at Sotheby's The John McCaffrey Collection of Kimberley Art auction on 28 July 2003 there seems to be a movement towards the re-evaluation of the worth of incised boab nuts both in financial and in artistic terms. Most importantly their value lies in the insights that these art works communicate and their documentation of life in the Kimberley over a considerable length of time.

Incised boab nut, Jack Wherra, Broome, 1965, Private Collection

I have had a long-term research interest in decorated boab nuts so for me, this 'sea-change' regarding the ultimate worth of boab nuts, both in the artistic and economic arenas, comes as a very welcome development.  At present, I am working on a doctorate entitled 'Colonial and Market Forces that Transformed the Function, Production and Style of Decorated Boab Nuts from the Kimberley ' in which I am exploring aspects of the response to colonisation by Indigenous artists. It also includes reference to various narrative elements relating to these decorated nuts, within the socio-political context. This follows my earlier 1999 honours thesis entitled 'Meandering Paths: An Exploration of Carved Boab Nuts from the Kimberley, Western Australia' in which the South Australian Museum's collection of boab nuts provided an opportunity to study changes in design over time and the possibility of relating these changes to a historical past.

As a result of the recent increase in interest and reassessment of the value of these unique and wonderful objets d'art , it is worth canvassing their origins, the history of their production, and the designs and styles which are repeatedly in evidence.

The Boab (Baobab) Tree is specific to the Kimberley region of Western Australia . With a history of economic importance for food and medicine, the Boab Tree is now famous as a Kimberley icon and as the source of fruit, colloquially called nuts, that are also used for decoration and then sold to tourists and collectors. Aboriginal artists collect these nuts in the dry season between April and August, and they begin to incise and paint them when the shell has hardened and the pulp is dry. Many local artists begin their art career by decorating boab nuts.

A Boab Tree between Derby and Fitzroy Crossing

Like the contested case of the toas of northern South Australia, the place of incised boab nuts in the pre-contact artistic exchange systems of the Kimberley is not entirely clear. Some view them as simply a post-contact phenomenon, as little more than 'tourist art' as it is so disparagingly termed, while others see decorated boab nuts as part of a continuum beginning with rock art. Early Kimberley art includes rock painting, ground and body paintings as well as sculpture, wood carving, and a wide variety of practical and ritual objects such as baskets, belts, pearl shell phallocrypts and bullroarers. Decorated with geometric and/or figurative designs, all these forms could be invoked in ceremonial contexts.

The arrival of European explorers and settlers had far reaching consequences for Aboriginal groups in the Kimberley region. Material changes, dislocation and depopulation led to both superficial and deep rooted cultural change which has been and is reflected in art and art production. While non-Indigenous influences, for example Asian influences within the pearling industry, promoted carving skills, it was the European contact that provided opportunity for substantial innovation in art practices, materials and design. Within the Kimberley , missionary activities initially encouraged the exchange of artefacts for food and tobacco, and later promoted art production as an industry. More recently, the successful implementation of art centres in the 1980s was to further influence Aboriginal art production and diversification. The production of non-traditional artefacts such as ceramics as well as those deemed 'traditional' for the commercial market has reached a high level of specialisation in some communities.

Kimberley artefacts and art works have been documented by a number of explorers, archaeologists, anthropologists and others, over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and most recently by the artists themselves. These accounts have allowed elements of continuity in design and motif from body and rock art, and wood or shell carving, to be observed through time to the present day. For example, the linked circle-line rock art design can be observed incised on boab nuts and painted in acrylic paint on canvas.

Today, boab nuts are typically carved with figurative motifs in either a naturalistic or realistic mode. Designs and styles are often regionally distributed, for example many nuts in the Broome region display local icons such as pearling luggers. The incising of motifs exposes the lighter colour of the under surface of the boab nut by either using a sharp pointed instrument or by scraping large areas away. The deep zigzag line of nineteenth and early twentieth century designs is a characteristic of the tool, frequently the lower incisor of a marsupial. With the introduction of metal the use of wire and penknives became increasingly popular producing greater variation in incision styles. Even dentists drills are now used, allowing for a very high level of technical command. It is interesting that the zigzag line has remained a dominant feature of many late twentieth century incised boab nuts and as a stylistic device can be found on slates, paintings, prints and fabrics. A smaller number of boab nuts are painted. The sale of boab nuts to tourists, particularly through art centres in the Kimberley , is quite significant with a large number being taken overseas.

Pearling lugger, Broome, 1997, Private Collection

Kangaroo design incised by a dentist drill, Jim Jolly, Geraldton, 1999, Private Collection

Bird design illustrating zigzag incising, Dickie Lena , Derby , 1997, Private Collection

Painted design by Judy Mengili, Kununurra, 2001, Private Collection

A number of broad categories of motifs can be observed and these can be simplified into three major categories - geometric, naturalistic and realistic. The last of these categories has been in ascendancy since the mid-twentieth century. The two earlier categories for decoration have been observed being used in conjunction or individually. The traditional motifs are either geometric, for example mazes and interlocking key designs, or naturalistic figures such as animals, plants and Ancestor figures. The more recent realistic motifs, including Christian iconography and Westernised hunting and domestic scenes such as cattle mustering, are increasingly prevalent after the mid-twentieth century. The declining use of traditional geometric design may reflect a number of changes in Aboriginal society and certainly illustrates market forces which have come into play in the last thirty years with identifiable figurative elements being seen as tourist friendly.

Geometric design in older style, Unknown, Fitzroy Crossing, 1997, Private Collection

Naturalistic design , Unknown , Derby , 1997, Private Collection

Realistic design, Unknown, East Kimberley, c1980, Private Collection

Of particular interest here, is the continuity between rock art, carved wood and pearl shell, and incised boab nuts. Geometric designs such as the interlocking key, meanders and mazes are observed on boab nuts from the nineteenth and early-twentieth century collections. A number of theories on what these designs portray have been suggested including representation of specific waterways, the paths of Ancestors and totemic heroes, or possibly even the Rainbow Serpent itself. The interlocking key design is incised on shields and pearl-shell as well as bull-roarers. The meander, ladder and other geometric designs have been incised on boab nuts and are characteristic of patterns also depicted on tjuringas ( churingas ) and demonstrate the possibility of ritual associations. A small number of new geometric designs are being produced today, particularly in the east Kimberley , and follow a trend towards simplicity with dotting or blocks of triangles or rectangles.

Geometric painted design, Shirley Lumai, Kununurra, 1997, Private Collection

Geometric design, Joe Lewis, Kununurra, 1997, Private Collection

Earlier geometric designs, which also include rhomboids and concentric circles, are most commonly observed combined with figures such as animals, plants and birds in the same manner as the decoration of pearl-shells and the boomerangs of the region. Naturalistic motifs are the most common images and can be compared to those displayed on cave walls and also engraved into the Boab Tree trunk itself. These include emus, snakes, crocodiles and many other animals, marine animals, insects and plants, as well as human and Ancestor figures. In the east Kimberley , snake motifs are common on cave walls and boab nuts. Plant designs such as the yam appear on both.

In the west Kimberley , an examination of the Wandjina motif is interesting as these Creator figures appear magnificently on cave walls and were occasionally seen painted on bark in the early twentieth century. Aboriginal artists were encouraged to place these figures on canvas or engrave the motif on slates during the 1980s due to increasing pressure from the burgeoning tourist industry to provide 'genuine' Aboriginal designs. The Wandjina's increasingly iconic status, parallelling that of the Kimberley itself, was recently highlighted at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

Wandjina design, Charlene Deegan, Derby, 1997, Private Collection

Wandjina design, Dennis Evan Oombulgarie, Wyndham, 2001, Private Collection

Wandjina design, Rosalyn Karadada, Unknown, 2003, Private Collection

It is important to note that the lack of provenance associated with both museum collections and with current art centre practices in conjunction with the capricious nature of collecting itself has made exploring connections between motifs over time difficult and often conjectural.

The decline in geometric motifs, whose origins pre-dates the twentieth century, and the increasing use of realistic figures as well as the very recent motifs perceived by tourists as 'genuine' Aboriginal designs reflect changes associated with fundamental transformations in Aboriginal society. These changes were introduced through European settlement and lately, by the development of an extensive external art market based on a cash economy.

To conclude, early accounts from ethnologists and collectors such as Clements (in 1898) place the incised boab nut firmly within ritual life, with Basedow (in 1916) observing decorated boab nuts being used as rattles during ceremonial dancing by Aboriginal men. Like the toas , decorated boab nuts are too deeply informed by traditional visual conventions to be completely divorced from pre-contact artefacts. Certainly, as a number of earlier reports have demonstrated, the practice of incising boab nuts was not introduced during the twentieth century as some other authors have noted. Photographic evidence from the nineteenth century confirms motif continuity with design precursors in rock art and wood carving. The depictions of ritual designs on early examples strongly suggest the ceremonial function attributed by Basedow.

Therefore, it is pleasing to see an auction house of the stature of Sotheby's taking such an interest in boab nuts – it appears that decorated boab nuts are ill-deserving of the 'low culture' status attributed to them in the past, even in the recent past, and the rather derogatory labels sometimes attached to them. This may be one of those rare cases where growing market acceptance begins to reflect the real value of these fascinating objects.

Ant design, Unknown, Unknown, 2004, Private Collection

Weapon design, Alan Griffiths, Kununurra, 1997, Private Collection

I wish to acknowledge the Museums that helped me with information on their collections of decorated boab nuts - the South Australian Museum , the Berndt Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of Victoria , the National Museum of Australia , the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum; and the private collectors who allowed me access to their collections.

Bibliography

• Akerman, K. 1993, 'From Boab Nuts to Ilma: Kimberley Art and Material Culture', in Images of Power. Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley , eds. J. Ryan & K. Akerman, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• Akerman, K., & Stanton , J.E. 1994, Riji & Jakuli: Kimberley Pearlshell in Aboriginal Australia , Monograph Series No. 4, Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences, Darwin
• Basedow, H. 1925, The Australian Aboriginal , FW Preece and Sons, Adelaide
• Clements, E. 1903, 'Ethnographic notes on the Western-Australian Aborigines, Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie , Vol 16, pp 1-16
• Crawford, I.M. 1968 , The Art of the Wandjina. Aboriginal Cave Paintings in the Kimberley , Oxford University Press, Melbourne
• Davidson, D.S. 1937, 'A Preliminary Consideration of Aboriginal Australian Decorative Art', Mankind , Vol IV, No 3, September, pp 85-98
• Lang, M.A.B 1999, Meandering Paths: An exploration of carved boab nuts from the Kimberley, Western Australia, Honours thesis, Flinders University of South Australia
• Lommel, A. 1970, 'Changes in Australian Art', in Diprotodon to Detribalization. Studies of Change among Australian Aborigines , eds. A.R. Pilling and R.A. Waterman, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing
• McCarthy, F.D. 1956, Australian Aboriginal Decorative Art , A.H. Pettifer, Sydney
• Sculthorpe, G. 1990, 'Designs on Carved Boab Nuts', COMA: Bulletin of the Conference of Museum Anthropologists , No 23, January, pp 37-47

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