Shield

This shield from Central Australia was possibly produced by the Luritja people of Papunya. Although no original documentation exists for this object, it is highly likely that the design on the shield represents a honey-ant totemic ancestor. This is significant as the same design was painted on the walls of the Papunya School in the early 1970s which contributed to the development of the now famous Papunya Tula art movement. It was collected by Robert Edwards for Museum Victoria in 1995. Although shields were manufactured by Aboriginal men primarily for fighting, they were also used on ceremonial occasions. Depending on the nature of the ceremony, certain iconographic designs were painted on the surface of the shield and employed in different parts of the ritual to evoke the power of ancestral beings originating in the 'dreamtime' (tjukurrpa). Like the iconography that appears in contemporary Aboriginal painting, the designs represent certain events and activities relating to the ancestral heroes as they wondered across the mythic landscape.