by The Aurukun Camp Dogs are wooden sculptures from far north Queensland, charismatic manifestations of a long-standing artistic tradition.
This article is part of an ongoing series covering works in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Click here for the full catalogue of NGV articles.
Aurukun, in far north Queensland, is one of the most remote settlements in Australia. Standing on the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the west coast of Cape Yorke, the town is a small dot in a vast wilderness; the climate is hot, the surrounding land largely arid, the population sparse.
Sixty thousand years ago, this was one of the locations where the first human beings arrived in Australia.
At the time sea levels were lower than today, a period known as the last glacial maximum, and a land bridge connected Australia to New Guinea. This enabled people to cross into the country on foot, walking over what would become the Torres Strait.
Many of these first arrivals would continue south, eventually spreading throughout the country. But some of them would remain in northern Queensland, near their original arrival point.
The first nations people of Cape Yorke comprise more than thirty different groups, each with their own culture, customs, and language. In the west of the cape, one of the largest groups are the Wik people, whose territory covers the land between Pormpuraaw and Weipa.
European settlement of Queensland began in 1825, when a penal colony was founded at what would become Brisbane. But the northern part of the state remained little explored until the end of the century.
In 1896, Archibald Meston, a failed sugar baron turned public servant, visited Cape Yorke in his role as ‘Special Commissioner’ of Aboriginal settlements.
Meston was in favour of removing Indigenous Australians from their lands, and forcing them to assimilate with Europeans. He would subsequently file an inflammatory report describing Cape Yorke as overrun by ‘wild tribes’; this would influence the Queensland Government to exert more control over Aboriginal communities.
Religious organisations were motivated to act as well, and Christian missions were founded across the Queensland bush.
In 1904, Arthur Richter established a Presbyterian mission on the west coast of Cape York, near the mouth of the Archer River. Richter and his wife Mary were from Germany, German missionaries were particularly active in Queensland at this time.
The locals referred to the mission as ‘Aurukun’, their name for a nearby lagoon.
The Richters ran Aurukun for ten years before returning to Germany. Their long-term replacement was Reverand Bill MacKenzie, who was appointed superintendent in 1924.
MacKenzie was more authoritarian than the Richters had been, enforcing standards of behaviour and doling out harsh punishments. Some indigenous locals, particularly children and young women, were taken under his charge against their will.
But he was also tolerant of some aspects of traditional custom, and some families joined the mission voluntarily.
Aurukun featured a church, bakery, sawmill, dormitories and a market garden, and offered rations in exchange for labour. Aboriginal men were organised into work gangs and sent out to harvest timber, which provided the mission with a source of revenue.
The dormitories were used to house the women, who were trained to be domestic servants. Religious instruction and basic health care were also provided.
MacKenzie ran Aurukun until his retirement in 1965.
Dogs are a prominent part of many Indigenous townships.
‘In almost all Aboriginal communities, dogs dominate the landscape: roaming the streets in packs, lying in the shade, seeking respite from the midday heat, seeking out an ‘owner’ to feed them leftovers from the day’s meal. Wherever you go, chances are a dog will be nearby.’
– Bruce Johnson McLean, essay for ‘Goma’
The dogs are a mix of breeds. There are dingoes, Australia’s only native dog species, western breeds, introduced by Europeans, and mixed breeds, with some elements of both.
Like the communities that care for them, these ‘camp dogs’, or ‘ku’, live between a traditional and modern existence.
Dogs also have a spiritual significance. Around Aurukun, they are seen not only as companions but as a physical connection to the spirit world.
One important Dingo Dreaming from the west cape regards the Knox River; tradition holds that a giant dingo forged the river with its tail, then turned into Nyiingkuchen, a freshwater shark, who leapt into the ocean.
Present day dingoes are believed to be descendants of this animal, and other dog breeds share this reflected cultural importance.
Indigenous art also has a long history, with some artistic practice stretching back thousands of years. The oldest reliably dated art in Cape Yorke are cave paintings found near Laura, which are estimated to be 13 – 15 000 years old.
Many archaeologists think it is likely there are still older works, yet to be discovered.
The tribes around Aurukun produced cave paintings, but the prevalence of forested areas also led them to wood carving.
‘Wood-carving has been an important ceremonial art form in the Aurukun area from time immemorial. Sets of carved icons were frequently used in public ceremonies.’
– Bruce Johnson McLean
The carvings came in a variety of forms, and were often of prominent members of the tribe, or common animals. They were also incorporated into large ‘law poles’ that documented each tribe’s customs.
Over time the carvings evolved a quirky aspect, with distorted proportions and exaggerated expressions, which was distinctive to the Aurukun region.
The Aurukun wood carvings escaped the attention of Europeans until after World War II.
The area was visited several times between 1949 and 1958 by JB McCarthy and William MacKenzie, who catalogued examples of Aurukun art for the University of Queensland’s Anthropology Museum. In 1962, The National Museum’s Frederick McCarthy visited with a film crew, who created a short documentary on the subject.
These visitors noted the ‘brutal’ style of Reverand MacKenzie.
The carvings documented by these visitors were made from milkwood and took as subjects’ dogs and other figures like bonefish, sharks, wallabies, taipans, and blue-tongued lizards. They were similar in style to the present day, but smaller, and often undecorated.
An art market operated at Aurukun, exchanging craft goods with other local communities. In addition to carvings, there were traditional tools such as spears and shields, women’s string bags of spun cabbage palm fibre, and a screen-printing workshop.
While these activities continued, after the 1960s Aurukun art disappeared from public view, for 40 years.
In the 1970s, the Presbyterian Church began to wind down their mission work in Australia. By this time, many of the missions had established themselves as fully fledged towns; as the church withdrew, control of these reverted to the Government.
Some Aboriginal communities then organised their own governing councils, and demanded more autonomy. The issue of Indigenous land rights, first raised in the early 20th century, began to gain momentum.
Aurukun, and the Wik people in particular, would be at the forefront of this movement.
In 1978, the Indigenous council at Aurukun objected to a new bauxite mine nearby. The conversative State Government, led by Joh Bjelke-Peterson, sided with the mining corporation and intervened to allow the mine to proceed.
The Aurukun council took the government to court, a landmark case that ended up in the Privy Council in London. While it was eventually decided in the Queensland government’s favour, change was on its way.
In 1982, Eddie Mabo and the Meriam tribe went to court, claiming traditional ownership of the Murray Islands in Torres Strait. After ten years of hearings, in June 1992, the High Court of Australia ruled in their favour.
This established the principle of ‘Native Title’, and extinguished the idea of ‘Terra Nullius’: that Australia belonged to no one when Europeans arrived.
The Wik people shortly followed suit, claiming ownership of a large tract of territory in Cape Yorke. Much of the Cape was privately owned, in 1996 the High Court found in the ‘Wik Decision’ that this did not automatically preclude a native title claim.
While this was a precedent-setting victory, this simply cleared an obstacle for the Wik claim to proceed. Their legal fight would be a lengthy one.
In 2003, the Queensland Art Gallery held an exhibition called ‘Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest’. Featuring more than 80 artists, from across the cape, the exhibition would showcase a range of art styles and mediums,
One of the stars of the show, were several examples of ‘Ku’, from Aurukun.
The carvings are immediately eye catching. Colourfully decorated, from pigments natural to the area, each one is unique, with different sizes, proportions, and expressions.
The personality of the animals is wonderfully well captured.
‘The ku run the gamut of canine emotions and expressions: the cheeky dog, the snivelling giggler, the overexcited puppy, the snarling menace, the well-fed alpha, the old dog laying in the dust. They’re all here.’
– GOMA, exhibition notes
The animals are instantly familiar, but strikingly different. You can sense the importance of the real-life dogs in the meticulous construction of their avatars; each one appears made with great care.
The ku would feature in several more exhibitions in Brisbane in the following years, and would become a regular attraction at art fairs in north Queensland.
Many of the artists that produce them are attached to the Wik and Kugu Art Centre in Aurukun, an art collective that provides support and commercial opportunities. Leading exponents are Lex, Garry, Leigh and Bevan Namponan, David Marpoondin, Bruce Bell, and Kenneth Bruce Wolmby.
In an interview with the ABC, Lex Namponan described the artists connection to the animals:
‘When we carve a Ku, the dogs come around and sit with us, we talk to them, and they sit down and relax.’
Works from these artists, and others, are now found in major galleries across Australia.
I will never forget the first time I saw them, in the Indigenous art collection at the NGV. There they were: grinning cheekily from a pedestal in one of the rooms, looking like they were ready to leap off and run amok.
A large crowd, kids and adults alike, stood in front, admiring them. They are instantly entrancing.
The Wik’s land rights claim was finally settled in 2023. They were granted Native Title over an area of 850 000 hectares in the western cape, centred around Weipa, and including Aurukun.
