Marilyn Davies

Bush Fire

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Marilyn Davies

Bush Fire

Central Art Aboriginal Art Store
Code: 0701543
Medium: Acrylic on Belgian Linen
Size: 188x128
Year: 2007
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This Aboriginal painting represent Bush Fire, which has been an essential survival tool for Aboriginal people, who lived in Central Australia's desert for tens of thousands of years. It has played, and continues to play a role in many aspects of life: warmth, hunting, cooking, tool making, communication, land management and bush medicine.

There is a very special bond between the men and fire. Knowledge of fire is passed on through ancient ancestral stories. It is the man’s job to start the fire & the woman’s job to keep it burning. Fire was, and in some placed still is, used to ‘clean up’ the country for walking, hunting, signalling, ceremonies and to encourage plant and animal foods. The men strategically burnt patches giving the landscape a mosaic pattern of different aged grasses.

Traditionally desert Aboriginal men would use a sawing motion to make fire. The base was made by cutting a wedge shape out of a soft wooden shield, tinder was then placed in the wedge (soft grass or kangaroo droppings). The edge of an amirre (spear thrower) or alye (boomerang) were then passed in a sawing motion across the cavity until the tinder was smouldering.

If you would like to know more about Bush Fire and the relationship with Aboriginal Art and culture, please read the following articles: