Kaparlgoo Blue: On the Adoption of Laundry Blue Pigment into the Visual Culture of Western Arnhem Land, Australia
Author(s)
Miller, E
May, SK
Goldhahn, J
Taçon, PSC
Cooper, V
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2021
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
It has been argued that laundry blue (whitener) was introduced into western Arnhem Land in the second half of the 1920s by missionaries, where it was used by Aboriginal people in rock art and on a variety of objects. Recent examination of museum collections acquired from the Northern Territory Native Industrial Mission at Kapalga in today’s Kakadu National Park, shows that the introduction of laundry blue into local Aboriginal artistic practices was earlier, around 1900. We discuss two examples of objects painted with laundry blue, a fibre basket and a bark belt, as well as broader ethnographic evidence relating to the ...
View more >It has been argued that laundry blue (whitener) was introduced into western Arnhem Land in the second half of the 1920s by missionaries, where it was used by Aboriginal people in rock art and on a variety of objects. Recent examination of museum collections acquired from the Northern Territory Native Industrial Mission at Kapalga in today’s Kakadu National Park, shows that the introduction of laundry blue into local Aboriginal artistic practices was earlier, around 1900. We discuss two examples of objects painted with laundry blue, a fibre basket and a bark belt, as well as broader ethnographic evidence relating to the significance of the color blue. We argue that the use of laundry blue is not only the result of access to an exotic new color but also has links to existing cultural beliefs.
View less >
View more >It has been argued that laundry blue (whitener) was introduced into western Arnhem Land in the second half of the 1920s by missionaries, where it was used by Aboriginal people in rock art and on a variety of objects. Recent examination of museum collections acquired from the Northern Territory Native Industrial Mission at Kapalga in today’s Kakadu National Park, shows that the introduction of laundry blue into local Aboriginal artistic practices was earlier, around 1900. We discuss two examples of objects painted with laundry blue, a fibre basket and a bark belt, as well as broader ethnographic evidence relating to the significance of the color blue. We argue that the use of laundry blue is not only the result of access to an exotic new color but also has links to existing cultural beliefs.
View less >
Journal Title
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
Note
This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.
Subject
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archaeology