Jamie Graham—Guest Lecturer on Aboriginal Australia: Cave Art Quote

 During our lecture about Aboriginal Australia, the guest speaker presented a quote about cave art. I couldn’t find the source of the quote, but I wrote it in my notes: “Paintings on the walls of a cave are like a vast library in which no book ever goes out of print. Even if the religious ideas in a specific volume have not been read in centuries, the book remains available to be dipped into, or to be revised and reprinted with new annotations or a new commentary whenever the reader feels a need for it.” This quote is significant because it points to a central challenge of any oral culture: how reliant they are on speech and memmory. Critical information such as laws, spiritual narratives, and genealogies are only as stable as the memory of living members of the population. The cave, however, provides a necessary balance. It is the permanent archive, ensuring that the core truths of the culture are never truly erased.

    This permanence allows the art to function as a dynamic collection of knowledge that can be ‘read’ and updated across generations. The practice of editing or painting over older images is the physical demonstration of the quote’s idea of “reprinted with new annotations or commentary whenever the reader feels a need for it.” The lates layer of paint reaffirms the relevance of the ancient story to the current generation. The cave is a continuous public statement that the foundational knowledge of the culture is still valid. This system guarantees that the cultural library remains accessible, providing the Aboriginal people with a constant, physical link to their ancestral past and ensuring the continuity of The Dreaming into the present day.


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