Case file · Sacred site
Wandjina paintings recorded by George Grey
In 1838 explorer George Grey published the first European account of the Wandjina paintings of the Kimberley: large white figures with haloed heads and no mouths, ancestral beings of rain and law for the Worrorra, Ngarinyin and Wunambal peoples.
1838 CE · -15.60, 124.70 · status: official
The account
The paintings are periodically renewed by custodians, keeping the beings' power active. Outsiders have often called them 'alien portraits', which custodians reject: they are ancestral and creation beings within living law. The Mowanjum community controls their reproduction.
The sceptical view
The ancient-astronaut reading is not supported by anything in the tradition; it ignores the custodians' own explanation.