Paint and Ochre

This resource is related to the following Learning Area –

And responds to the following Enquiry Question –

Q38.	How was paint made and what was it used for?

Resource transcript –

We had black yellow white and red on Country and our red is for Sorry Business. Our white is uh is just a general every day for for dance and painting up. Are yellows and whites were used when we was coming together with other mobs. But red was definitely sacred, as for Sorry Business, and because of the iron content it aligns the hemoglobins in the blood with the with the north and south poles, I suppose, it’s it’s all you know magnetic and so it helps you to focus. My first cousin he was the last great fisherman of the Kombumerri. He passed away a few years back. He um he’d passed away but before he died he left his legacy and he debarbed all these stingrays, as a fisherman, they’re now over at Sea World and the barbs are growing back but you can pat them you look you go there and then you’re patting stingrays with barbs on them. So he was a great fisherman. And on on the day of his Sorry Business so I painted from head to toe in red ochre. All parts of my body everywhere you can imagine …. it’s it’s um you know and and it’s a different …. it’s a different feeling I’ve put ochre on my life this was the first time putting red ochre on because he was so close to me. And it did help me to focus. I lead his Sorry Business and I think the overall experience with the red ochre is it’s not something you want to apply every day to your life. It it has to have it brings out something um incredibly fierce you know it and it has to be in something of great importance. And I suppose that’s the meaning of ochres because they have different mineral contents. They’re from the earth. Mother Nature put them for here here for us and you know we’re incorporating Mother Nature uh you know we are dressed in in her in our lifeblood and that’s what it is.