ABORIGINAL ART.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 52, 29 January 1938, Page 6

ABORIGINAL ART.

STUDY OF ROCK CARVINGS. BERLIN, Jan. 18. Tho German scientists who are going to Australia to conduct ethnological investigations in the district between the. Glenelg and Fitzroy Rivers, in Western Australia, will seek to determine whether tho aboriginal rock carvings are purely decorative or a kind of picture writing, corresponding to the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The scientists will pay special attention to a native tribe which still cultivates rock-picturc art of a prehistoric type. Professor Leo Frobenius, the explorer and authority on Africa, will not, as had been previously understood, lead the party. The party will lie led by Dr Heimuth Petri, aged 30, a noted ethnologist and a specialist in Australian subjects. It will also include Mr Douglas C. Fox, a German-Amcri-can specialist in the reproduction of rock carvings; Dr A. Lommell, and two painters, Frau Agnes Schulz and Fraulein Gerta Klcist. Dr Petri and Mr Fox will arrive in Sydney on March 13, the others remaining at Fremantle. After conferring with Professor A. P. Elkin, of the University of Sydney, Dr Petri and Mr Fox will return to Fremantle, from which port the party will proceed to Beagle Bay. The expedition is under the auspices of the Ethnological Institute of Frankfurt-on-Main.