Dots

I used to be illusioned and gruntled - now I am the exact opposite. I feel a little robbed, and I reckon if more people actually knew it, they'd feel a bit ripped off too. This is what happens when you learn shit - it changes the way you think about stuff. It's never good. I reckon we should start suicide bombing schools. Pack little Timmy a 'lunch box', if you know what I mean. The unsuspecting assailant - the perfect crime. The worst part about learning something is having to admit that you just found it out to somebody who already knew it. "Oh, you didn't know that!?" they'll sneer, smugly. "I thought everybody knew that!"

Aboriginal dot-painting has only been around since about 1970. I'm serious. I thought there was like 80,000 years of development and perfection behind every painting. I used to stand in front of Aboriginal dot paintings in awe and reverence - as if I was getting an insight into an ancient culture. The dreamy expressions of a proud and meticulous people. And for WHAT? It's not! Some guy just thought it up one day. It's just stock-standard modern art. It's no more culturally significant than any Jackson Pollock or Pro Hart.

I don't want to detract from the artistic efforts put in to creating these works. It's art, as good as any. In fact, it deserves a lot of credit. Dot-painting requires boundless creativity and level of patience usually reserved for stoners and model-train enthusiasts. The Aboriginals may have the niche cornered but there isn't anything specifically Aboriginal about it - they didn't even really invent it. So when I went to Jabiru I was determined to find out what old-school Aboriginal art was all about.

Kakadu National Park, on a scale of 1 to pretty fucking cool, is pretty fucking cool. We pulled the troopee into a tourist-parky bit - it was full of old people pulling caravans, pinkened backpackers and hot, bored children. 'Look, Tarquin! It's a big rock!' What parents always seem to forget when they stop to enjoy the view on a roadtrip, is that the kids have been looking at the same 'view' for five fucking hours out of the car window. We avoided the tour groups and took a stroll to find some rock paintings.

The path was graveled and well defined. The first paintings we came across had a rail in front of them which kinda detracted from my whole experience of being 'at one with the land'. I put a handful of dirty and bark down my pants to bridge the gap. I was surprised at first - no dot paintings, no hand out-line thingies like I was expecting (the ABC has a lot to answer for – stereotype mongers). What I saw were ancient stick figure men with big dongs. Really big dongs. The traditional owners of Kakadu weren't shy. Nor, evidently, need they be.

Around another corner and halfway up a big rocky hill there were more paintings of men. These ones were without big dongs. They had guns - a common substitute for a functioning dick. They were the white men. These paintings could barely be two hundred years old. Yeah, that's pretty old, guess... and it was pretty funny that the white men were dickless... but it was still not really the artistic insight I was hoping to gain... we headed for the next corner.

Out of nowhere a massive stone mantle appeared. Huge overhanging rocks created an enormous natural atrium 30 feet high. The ancient locals had made the entire thing - every surface - into a gallery. No, not a gallery - a menu! Each painting was a scale drawing of the foods of the area. Each fish, bird, lizard, snake, and mammal in the area - each in perfect detail. They were incredibly accurate and structural, right down to the last fish scale - they reminded me of Da Vinci's illicit anatomical drawings. These were people who knew their world inside out. I was totally awestruck. I wondered where they got their inspiration to draw. Looking to the sky, I found it.

The stone roof was one great slab of sedimentary rock. In it, scattered throughout, were fossils. Ancient birds and fish, twisted in death-poses - each bone pressed flat and perfectly preserved in the rock. The locals believed that these were the drawings of the Gods - chiseled in solid rock, high in the roof, well out of the reach of man. They were perfect pictures that understood the animals' workings from the inside out. The locals followed that lead, and in doing so became Gods themselves - masters of their domain. Thousands of years ago the Aboriginals already knew that what is inside is far more profound than anything it can produce outside. "Oh, you didn't know that!?" say the Aboriginals, sneering smugly. "I thought everybody knew that!"

Anyway, dot-painting sucks – I can say that now without any social or cultural guilt. It’s like saying you don’t like rap music, or tap dance, or time-out parenting. If any of them are still around in 80,000 years I’ll start to show them a little respect. Maybe. If I’m not busy that week.