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Style and substance: McCarthy versus Mountford and the emergence of an archaeology of rock art 1948–1960

Anne Clarke, Sally K. May, Ursula K. Frederick and Iain G. Johnston

Introduction

The Australian rock art research community is no stranger to epic battles between individuals with differing viewpoints on rock art. These disputes are not a new phenomenon, as this paper outlines. It is rare, however, for these arguments to reflect major shifts in the nature of rock art research and, more broadly, archaeological research. In this paper we present the story of two individuals – Frederick ‘Fred’ McCarthy and Charles ‘Monty’ Mountford – whose rock art research and ongoing debates and disputes over methodologies and interpretive frameworks represent a foundational turning point in the history of Australian rock art research. Spanning the 1940s to the 1960s, their documentation of rock art during the 1948 American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land and their subsequent arguments reflect both antiquarianism and innovation (Figure 2.1). Importantly, these debates reflect an attempt to introduce scholarly standards and recognisable archaeological methods into rock art research in Australia as well as early struggles to link the evidence from archaeological excavations and recordings of rock art.

The feud: An introduction

The claims made by Mountford are completely unfounded and incorrect, they are in fact downright unscientific. They demonstrate either a lack of understanding of the true value of records of superimposition in cave paintings, or a deliberate refusal to do so. (McCarthy to Evans, 18 January 1956)

This passage from a letter written in 1956 by a clearly exasperated Fred McCarthy to John Evans, the director of the Australian Museum, some eight years after the conclusion of the American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land (hereafter referred to as the Expedition) is fairly typical of the tenor of much of the correspondence written by members of the Expedition, both to each other and to their institutions (see below and Jones 2011:48–49, 52). Penned in the midst of a period of dispute over the authorship and order of volumes for the Expedition records, it cuts straight to the heart of the conflict over the methodologies and analytical frameworks employed in the recording of rock art during fieldwork in 1948, characterised here as a matter of substance versus style.

Figure 2.1: ‘Group photograph of the members of the 1948 American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, taken on Groote Eylandt.’

‘From left to right, back row: Ray Specht, Brian Billington, Robert Miller, John Bray, Keith Cordon. Middle row: Kelvin Hodges, Margaret McArthur, Charles Mountford, Frank Setzler, Bert Deignan, Bessie Mountford. Front row: Frederick McCarthy, Peter Bassett-Smith, Harrison Howell (Hal) Walker, David Johnson. Not shown: Bill Harney, Reg Hollow’.

Source: Mountford-Sheard Collection, State Library of South Australia, PRG 1218/34/2847.

Mountford and McCarthy with a cameo by Norman Tindale

The scholarly and professional lives of Charles Pearcy Mountford (1890–1976), Frederick David McCarthy (1905–1997) and Norman Barnett Tindale (1900–1993) were entangled in ways that, although unexpected on first encounter, are perhaps not so surprising on deeper reflection. All three men were born around the turn of the twentieth century, their lives and careers encompassed by the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century traditions of antiquarian curiosity and the museological imperative of universal description and classification, culminating in the mid-to-late twentieth-century transition to more scientific methods of inquiry and analysis. In the first half of the twentieth century, the three men were among a handful of museum professionals, academics and independent scholars engaged in the study of Australian Indigenous cultures (Spriggs 2020). Although our research focuses on the deep and bitter feud between Mountford and McCarthy over the documentation, analysis and interpretation of Australian Aboriginal rock art, the imposing figure of Norman Tindale looms in the backstory to this historical altercation.

Tindale was colleague and adversary alike to both Mountford and McCarthy. Mountford wrote his first paper with Tindale in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia for 1926, describing rock engravings at Morowie, South Australia (Tindale and Mountford 1926). In 1934 Tindale, accompanied by Mountford, excavated Kongarati Cave on the south coast of South Australia (Tindale and Mountford 1936), and in 1935 they both went on the expedition for the University of Adelaide Board of Anthropological Research to the Warburton Ranges in Western Australia. Mountford was employed as the photographer and to record Aboriginal art, while Tindale was leader and ethnologist (Tindale 1936). Tindale and McCarthy engaged in a decades-long tussle over their interpretations of the stratigraphic and stone tool sequences documented in excavations at Tartanga and Devon Downs, both excavated by Tindale (Hale and Tindale 1930; Tindale 1957), and Lapstone Creek excavated by McCarthy (e.g. 1948, 1958). In 1958 McCarthy took full aim at Tindale’s 1957 attempt at a synthesis of a cultural sequence for south-eastern Australia. He believed Tindale’s findings were ‘premature and untenable’, noting: ‘For these reasons, the paper cannot be let go unchallenged, and I have tried, in this review to present an unbiased and impersonal criticism of the archaeological problems involved’ (McCarthy 1958:177). Interestingly, Tindale’s first substantive fieldwork in 1921 was on Groote Eylandt (Tindale 1925–26a, 1925–26b), coincidentally the first field location on the American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land and the setting where the initial ‘terms of engagement’ between Mountford and McCarthy over rock art came into sharp definition.

The feud: Authorship, rivalry, deceit and disputed ownership

Reflections on the history of the 1948 Expedition have been well published, firstly by Sally K. May in her 2009 book Collecting cultures: Myth, politics, and collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition and secondly via the various papers published in the 2011 edited volume, Exploring the legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition (Thomas and Neale 2011). From February to November 1948, 17 researchers from an array of disciplines worked at base camps in Arnhem Land as part of a National Geographic Society and Australian Government–sponsored research expedition. While it might seem that scientific research was the key motivator for the expedition, in fact, politics and promoting collaboration with the USA was the reason it took place – while the Americans were funded via the National Geographic Society of America, the Australian contingent was funded by the Commonwealth Government and the Australian Broadcasting Commission (Simpson 1951; see also Jones 2011:49). The key base camps were Groote Eylandt, Yirrkala and Oenpelli. Under the overall leadership of Mountford, the team investigated the people, animals and environment of Arnhem Land and acquired substantial collections for both the Australian and Smithsonian museums. Official findings from their research were published in four volumes (Mountford 1956; Specht and Mountford 1958; Mountford 1960; Specht 1964) and featured in two popular National Geographic articles (Mountford 1949; Walker 1949; see also Simpson 1951).

Philip Jones (2011), in a delightfully engaging account of the politics and personality clashes that characterised the Expedition, sets out and contextualises how the conflicts between Mountford and the other Expedition members simmered away even before the team had assembled in Darwin in March 1948. The conflicts began in earnest at Umbakumba on Groote Eylandt, where the first Expedition base camp was located. People actively chafed at Mountford’s leadership style and personality, both in the field and, in the following years, as the expedition reports were prepared for publication. This extract from a letter sent to McCarthy by the American archaeologist Frank Setzler hints at these issues:

I’m sure we never realized the type of individual nor the uncanny methods such a person would use to promote his own ego. After all, you were the only one of the Australian group that he could not completely dominate. (Setzler to McCarthy, 26 June 1957)

An extract from an earlier 1951 letter by McCarthy was more direct in outlining aspects of the field-based conflicts. More than 70 years later, it is still possible to hear the somewhat dismissive tone accompanying McCarthy’s description of Mountford’s field of study as ‘art and legends’:

The insinuation that I intruded upon Mr. Mountford’s field of study of art and legends can be answered simply by stating that whatever I did was with his permission as leader of the Expedition. (McCarthy to Walkom, c. 1951)

McCarthy was very clear in his own mind as to the reasons for Mountford’s hostility towards him. In another blunt letter to the Australian Museum director, McCarthy (to Evans, October 1957) summarises what he considers to be the main reasons:

There are several reasons for Mountford’s hostility, as follows:

1. My refusal to grant him co-authorship of several papers (cave paintings of Chasm Id. To be separated from my main cave painting paper in the Expedition reports, and of two other papers published in our records) because I had done all of the work and he was not entitled in any way to joint authorship.
2. My analysis of Oenpelli cave painting sequences which he had failed to detect – he was extremely jealous of the work I did on cave paintings during the Expedition and has been critical of its results ever since.
3. The taking over from him of the Expedition’s collection of bark paintings, after the late Professor Nadel had asked me for information about this collection and other material held by Mountford from the Expedition. It should be recorded here that there are several hundreds of wood carvings, sacred objects, etc., illustrated in vol. 1 of the Expedition Records by Mountford that were concealed by him during the course of the Expedition, and were not submitted for the sharing of the anthropological collection between the Australian Museum, U.S. National Museum, and the Commonwealth Government, although Mountford insisted as leader in taking his share of all other specimens. The Commonwealth Government took possession of the bark paintings held by Mountford but I do not know whether it also secured the wood carvings, sacred objects, etc. held by him.

As we can see from this letter, issues of authorship, methodology, access to collected materials for analysis, plus the incendiary accusations of deceitful practices over the institutional distribution of objects collected during the Expedition were all part of McCarthy’s ongoing feud with Mountford.

Chasm Island

During the Expedition, it was a very small island, Chasm Island, located off the north coast of Groote Eylandt, that became the fulcrum for these disputes. Mountford had demanded joint publication of the data but McCarthy refused point blank to comply (McCarthy to Evans, October 1957) with the result that both men wrote about the rock art of Chasm Island in separate volumes.

The Expedition had landed on Groote Eylandt in early April 1948, when a series of mishaps with the delivery of food supplies and equipment meant that the Expedition members spent far longer – some 17 weeks – on Groote Eylandt than originally planned. In early July, in the week before finally departing for Yirrkala on the north-east Arnhem Land coast, a group, including Mountford and McCarthy, spent a few days exploring Chasm Island. It was on Chasm Island that the differences in methodology and analytical framing came to the fore and continued to reverberate long after the Expedition members packed up their notebooks and sample jars. Ongoing disputes over authorship and the order of volumes affected not only the Australian members of the Expedition but also the Americans, creating difficulties for the contributing institutions, as can be seen in a longer extract from Frank Setzler’s letter to McCarthy.

Unfortunately, he created a spell over Dr. Wetmore, who thinks he can do no wrong; moreover, N.G.S. does not want to interfere in another country’s affairs. In this connection, Dr. and Mrs. Gilbert Grosvenor, the originators of the N.G.S., now retired, are planning a trip to Australia this fall. Perhaps you and the new director of your museum can urge the publication of vol. II. (Setzler to McCarthy, 26 June 1957)

Mountford’s own single authored Expedition volume on Aboriginal art was the first to be published in 1956, with volume 3 on the botany and ecology of Arnhem Land published next in 1958 (Specht and Mountford 1958), and volume 2 on Arnhem Land anthropology and nutrition, including chapters on rock art and archaeology by McCarthy and McCarthy and Setzler, only appearing in 1960 (Mountford 1960). The following are examples of correspondence documenting the disputes over the Expedition Records.

Might I suggest that it be pointed out to Mr. Mountford that a difficult situation has arisen in respect to the fact that he, as editor of the reports, is writing on the Chasm Island cave paintings according to his letter of 11th January, whilst I have described the paintings in a large number of sites on this island in a detailed and comparative systematic study. In these circumstances I do not feel disposed to submit my manuscript because it would place the editor in an invidious position. (McCarthy to Walkom, 8 June 1951)

I am sorry to say that, due to my refusal to accept some very poor work from McCarthy, and his attempt to use political pressure, vol. II will follow Ray Specht’s work Vol. III. (Mountford to unknown, 16 March 1957)

It is obvious that Mountford’s statement to the US National Museum about my ‘very poor work’ is for the purpose of discrediting me as his excuse for changing the order of publication of volumes II and III of the expedition reports. (McCarthy to Evans, 10 July 1957)

The assertion that I ‘have attempted to use political pressure’ is a deliberate fabrication. The whole of the correspondence about the publication of papers has been conducted officially by Mountford, and not as it should be between author and editor. In this correspondence he has consistently exceeded his editorial rights by using every possible opportunity to disparage my work. (McCarthy to Evans, 10 July 1957)

The reasons for the change in the order of publication of the volumes are certainly not those given to the US National Museum by Mountford. I feel he should be reproved by the Department of News and Information, which is handling the Expedition reports, and request to withdraw the remarks in his unwarranted attack upon me. (McCarthy to Evans, 10 July 1957)

There has been a lot of acrimonious correspondence with Mr. Mountford over the Arnhem Land reports, but it is quite unjust that Mountford in this fashion should write about McCarthy’s work, and certainly he has never attempted to use political pressure in any way at all. The reasons for Mountford’s disparaging remarks are well-known to me and do him no credit. (Evans to Kellogg, 15 August 1957)

The published chapters and their accompanying images of rock art encapsulate the differences between the way that the two men approached both documentation and interpretation.

Whilst there McCarthy made complete records of some of the painted caves on the western side [of Chasm Island], noting the relationship of the designs to each other, their superimpositions and their colours. My interest, on the other hand, was in the study of the art forms themselves. (Mountford 1956:102)

On Chasm Island, Mountford surveyed rock-shelters on the eastern and north-western sides, focusing on what he called ‘predominant figures’. He only illustrates and discusses individual motifs – those he considered to be the singular and the exceptional, all identified without any clearly articulated criteria. There are no maps of the sites he documented, nor, indeed, an indication of how many he visited. His comments about the rock art are descriptive and assertive, for example: ‘A is some lizard-like creature’. Mountford’s cherry-picking approach to recording rock art leaves us with pages of decontextualised rock art drawings and lists of ‘interpretations’. There are no clear methods and he shows no interest in recording context, spatial relationships, superimpositioning, media or techniques of production. He also formed the opinion in his conclusion that ‘Groote Eylandt art is the simplest in the Arnhem Land area’ (Mountford 1956:104).

Four years later, in the opening paragraph of his chapter on the ‘Cave Paintings of Groote Eylandt and Chasm Island’, McCarthy goes for the proverbial jugular, taking a large swipe at Mountford’s primitivist and particularistic approach to the cave paintings:

Most of the literature on Australian cave paintings deals with a selection of the outstanding figures in a particular site. In the few papers where all of the figures are described they are usually arranged conveniently for illustration so that their position in relationship to one another is not apparent. One result of the publication of such inadequate descriptions of sites from all over the continent, viewed from the comparative and chronological approaches, is that only incomplete data are available to the archaeologists, even though in some instances, the description satisfies the social anthropologist or the student of primitive art. (McCarthy 1960:297)

He goes on to outline his approach to the systematic and analytical study of rock art, noting in particular the importance of superimpositioning to understanding the chronology of styles and colours on Groote Eylandt:

In the present study a systematic analytical method was adopted with the aim of overcoming some of these deficiencies, and of revealing the fundamental characteristics of the cave art on Groote Eylandt and Chasm Island; further, with the purpose of providing a complete record of the art represented in the groups recorded. (McCarthy 1960:297)

McCarthy provides a location map and a detailed description of each of the 27 sites he recorded, and the published drawings show the motifs in their spatial relationships. McCarthy used a grid system to record and contextualise his recordings (Clarke and Frederick 2011). His analysis focused on some basic statistics and includes a comparative analysis of the different sites, concluding with a schema of styles and a chronological sequence based on colour and superimpositions. In a final riposte to Mountford, McCarthy (1960:390) noted: ‘The artistic merit of the paintings of Chasm Island and Groote Eylandt is equal to that elsewhere in Australia where representative, naturalistic painting occurs’.

Oenpelli (Gunbalanya)

By the time the Expedition reached its final base camp, tensions were boiling over (see May 2009:90–93). The differences in approaches to rock art recording were unchanged and neither Mountford nor McCarthy were in any mood to resolve their differences. Mountford dedicated his limited research time to acquiring bark paintings and visiting and photographing rock art sites near the Oenpelli settlement.

The cave paintings of Oenpelli are more skilfully executed and more varied in design than in any other part of Arnhem Land; in fact, they are the most numerous and beautiful series of cave paintings that we know of in Australia. (Mountford 1956:109)

During the seven weeks they were camped at Oenpelli, Mountford documented paintings (Figure 2.2) on Injalak Hill, Arguluk Hill, and around Red Lily Lagoon (Inagurdurwil) as well as collecting bark paintings (Mountford 1956:109). On a later visit he added other areas to his study, including Ubirr and Cannon Hill in what is now Kakadu National Park. It is important to note that Mountford and his team were not welcomed by the Oenpelli missionaries and, as such, they were forced to work mainly with people from outside of the region, especially people from the Liverpool River region (Mountford 1956:111; May 2009:187).

Figure 2.2: An example of Mountford’s ‘polychrome X-ray art’ from Injalak Hill.

Source: Photograph by Sally K. May.

As with Chasm Island, Mountford’s methodology for recording rock art was far from systematic. He simply selected paintings of interest to him, photographed and/or sketched them and noted some basic characteristics (such as colours used). He argued for two basic periods/types of rock art at Oenpelli:

They are (a) polychrome X-ray paintings of animals, birds, reptiles and fish, but seldom of human beings, in which both the external and internal details are indicated, many having been painted within the memory of living man; and (b) single-line drawings which, the aborigines claim, are not the work of their kind, but of a fairy people called the Mimi.

The polychrome X-ray art. Although aboriginal art, or for that matter any art, is visual, the X-ray art is, in addition, intellectual. The aboriginal artist of Oenpelli not only paints what he sees but also what he knows is there but cannot see: the skeleton, heart, lungs, stomach, intestines and other organs of the body …

The monochrome Mimi art. On the other hand, the Mimi artists had a feeling for composition and movement which the X-ray artists lacked. Their main subject was man in action, running, fighting and throwing spears. (Mountford 1956:112)

Mountford says little of superimposition, simply noting that:

Although there has been extensive over-painting in some of the galleries of the X-ray paintings, this characteristic was not often seen in the Mimi drawings. Groups of Mimi drawings, some containing as many as thirty figures, appear to have been complete compositions, conceived and carried out by one artist. (Mountford 1956:112)

Mountford’s analysis is based upon his selection of key images from a site rather than looking at them in context – a key point of difference with McCarthy. He presents his results as individual motifs or scenes redrawn and then discussed individually in text. His interpretation is based on his own insights, mixed with ethnographic information drawn from previous research and occasionally from his own ethnographic research, though who he obtained this information from is not generally recorded.

Mountford’s interpretation is clearly lacking in ethnographic detail and depth. For example, one painting depicting the widely known story of Yingarna, is simply described as a ‘Mimi woman with many carrying-bags suspended from her shoulders’ (Mountford 1956:136; Figure 2.3). He attributes this interpretation to his informants, who he suggests could either not be bothered explaining the actual story of the painting, or did not want to share it with him. On occasion he compares the paintings with others elsewhere in Australia or even overseas. Mimi figures are, for example, compared with ‘similar figures in Europe and Africa’ (Mountford 1956:112) or, specifically, with the ‘prehistoric Levantine art of eastern Spain, and in the Bushman art of South Africa’ (Mountford 1956:260).

Figure 2.3: Yingarna, Injalak Hill.

Source: Photograph by Sally K. May.

Figure 2.4: Photograph of the adult and baby birds referred to by McCarthy in his field diaries, Injalak Hill.

Source: Photograph by Sally K. May.

While much has been written about Mountford’s aims and expectations relating to the study of art during the 1948 Expedition, less is known of McCarthy’s role. As such, we focus here on McCarthy at Oenpelli and present new information relating to his rock art recordings and his arguments with the Expedition leader.

On first arrival at Oenpelli, McCarthy ventured to the other side of the billabong to climb Injalak Hill (he refers to it as Billabong Hill in his diary). He noted:

I walked over to the cave paintings and saw some remarkable art far too complex to record by the grid technique. Figures are superimposed one over the other and all the x-ray ones are covered in fine line polychrome decoration. Some are from single colour silhouettes in red, yellow and white, others have a thick outline around another solid colour. Some of the most fascinating figures comprise a bird feeding two open-mouthed young ones on a branch, all in black, women and men in beautiful line work on a plane with Bushman art, and many other extraordinary subjects. They will best be recorded with colour-film. They are painted in numerous shelters & protected surfaces & there appear to be a succession of techniques as on Groote & Chasm Is. (McCarthy, Diary 5, 17 September 1948; Figure 2.4)

It was clear, however, that Mountford did not appreciate McCarthy’s interest in rock art. Presumably unable to continue with his rock art studies, McCarthy turned his attention to helping Frank Setzler with archaeological excavations (Figure 2.5). While excavating, McCarthy occasionally noted the presence of rock art in a number of the shelters, but offered little description or interpretation. For example, during excavations of a site on Injalak Hill, he noted: ‘There are some red paintings on these walls chiefly solid red but some old and faded X-Ray figures’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, 4 October 1948).

Figure 2.5: Frederick McCarthy and Frank Setzler excavating Site 1 on Injalak Hill in 1948.

Source: Photograph from the Frank M. Setzler Collection, National Library of Australia, nla.obj-142216040.

McCarthy’s other focus was plotting his escape from the main Expedition camp. He began campaigning to accompany Margaret MacArthur to ‘Gamada’ (Fish Creek). While MacArthur would focus on diet and nutrition, McCarthy would make notes on Aboriginal life and take photos for ‘groups & murals’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, 4 October 1948). Of course, Mountford pushed back against this bid for independence and put multiple obstacles in the way: ‘I think he will do everything he can to sabotage this trip’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, c. 25 September 1948). Mountford insisted that MacArthur and McCarthy could not be alone at Gamada and that they have a chaperone with them – the job eventually fell to transport officer John Bray. The resulting MacArthur and McCarthy research paper from this trip became arguably one of the most important research outcomes from the Expedition (Altman 2011; McCarthy and MacArthur 1960). Away from the politics of the Oenpelli expedition camp, McCarthy (Diary 5, c. 22 October 1948) declared: ‘It was a most successful camp … & a very happy one’.

In the days before the final Expedition base camp packed up ready to return to Darwin, McCarthy spent a ‘hot & strenuous’ day photographing rock art on ‘gallery hill (Injaluk)’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, 27 October 1948) and at Red Lily Lagoon (McCarthy, Diary 5, 4 November 1948). It is interesting to note that in his official Oenpelli diaries McCarthy barely mentions Aboriginal people by name. Yet, in his rough sketch books he does mention individuals and includes brief descriptions of those in camp with him at Gamada. Reading his official diaries gives the impression that he was very much alone in many of his explorations, though sometimes in company with Setzler, Harney or MacArthur. While the Gamada expedition suggested he had an anthropological interest in local culture, he notably lacked the opportunity to engage with local people. Did he ask anyone about the rock art? There is some evidence that he did during a one-day trip to Red Lily Lagoon. McCarthy noted the existence of a number of rock paintings – men and women in ‘various action poses’, ‘a delightful wallaby’ and more. He also wrote about a large human figure said to be about 15 ft: ‘It is said to be a female but strongly resembles the wandjina of the Kimberley in style’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, 3 October 1948). We can only assume that a local Aboriginal person had informed him the figure was female, but there is no mention of companions on this day trip. Likewise, during a trip to Red Lily Lagoon with Margaret MacArthur, he noted a type of rock painting known as mimi featuring ‘beautiful action postures of dancing, fighting, etc.’. Importantly, he stated, ‘ … they are supposed to be the rock spirits but the natives know nothing about their origin’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, 4 November 1948). This statement suggests he tried to talk to local people about the rock art but they were unwilling to share cultural knowledge with him.

McCarthy’s interest in the superimposition of styles as an archaeological approach is seen in his examination of western Arnhem Land rock art, and in later publications (e.g. McCarthy 1979:35–37). For example, he wrote:

We made copious notes on the superimpositioning of styles for comparison with the Groote & Chasm paintings. We didn’t finish till 5pm & then walked into camp, arriving at 7pm, after a long & weary day. (McCarthy, Diary 5, 4 November 1948)

On his final days in camp, McCarthy continued to visit nearby rock art sites including ‘Gallery Hill’ (Injalak Hill) where he made further notes on ‘superimpositioning’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, 5 November 1948). He was also hastily trying to collect any ‘ethnographic’ artefacts from the Aboriginal camp. While successfully acquiring some spears and baskets, his attempts to acquire sacred objects was unsuccessful: ‘I got another batch of specimens from the chap where they had muraian stones (painted), feathered string etc for a forthcoming ceremony & would not part with them’ (McCarthy, Diary 5, 9 November 1948).

At the end of the Expedition, the National Geographic Society photographer and journalist Howell Walker asked McCarthy what he considered the most significant contribution to anthropology made by the Arnhem Land Expedition. His answer is telling. He highlights the archaeological research undertaken as well as the collection of string figures from Yirrkala. He also takes the time to address Mountford’s study of Aboriginal art:

In regard to the study of aboriginal art made by mr. C.P. mountford I would point out that, in my opinion it is not the most significant contribution for two reasons. Firstly, the paintings on bark from Groote Eylandt were obtained with a lack of understanding of the true relationship of the painting to the legend; the method used by mr. mountford produces a large series of paintings of figures of animals, etc. and not as should have been collated, a series of paintings depicting the legendary story. Secondly, mr. and mrs. BBrndt [Berndt] had already … more detailed and prolonged work in the same field as mr. Mountford at Yirrkala and Oenpelli. (McCarthy to Walker November 1948 in McCarthy Diary 5)

While he is specifically discussing the bark painting collection, it is interesting to note the contradiction in McCarthy’s preferred methodologies. While he suggests the bark paintings should have been collected and studied in their ethnographic context, his criticism of Mountford’s rock art recording methodology focuses only on the lack of scientific vigour. Rock art was archaeological work, bark paintings were anthropology …

During the publicity tour, plans for publication of the findings from the Expedition emerged as a point of contention, and again provide interesting insights into McCarthy’s attitude to art research.

Monty was in a frightful anger & attacked me … asserting that I had no right to publish a comparison of art styles in the cave ptgs [paintings] nor any of the four bark painting (which formed part of my research). He also wanted to be a co-author on the Chasm Id [Island] paintings. I rejected all his requests, on the grounds that I had done the research & had the right to publish it. He raised the old ‘Artifact’ argument but I pointed out that I was interested in the art chiefly from the archaeological sequence & techniques point of view. He claimed the sole right to publish papers on art, & was very bitter. Setzler was astounded at his outburst & told me to hold my ground, which I fully intend to do. (McCarthy, Diary 5, November 1948)

Discussion

Charles P. Mountford we did not know

You’d test black magic on this show.

You’ve proved it on boats, so do refrain

From any research on the Aeroplane

(McCarthy, Diary 5, part of a song written at Oenpelli during the Expedition)

We can perhaps trace some of the underlying reasons for the feud beyond the 1948 Expedition, back to the training, personalities and intellectual inclinations of both men. Kate Kahn and John Mulvaney have commented alike on McCarthy’s unassuming personality, Mulvaney noting that ‘Fred McCarthy is a humble and modest man’ (Mulvaney 1993:23) and Kahn stating that ‘He has not sought kudos by becoming a personality on television or radio’ (Kahn 1993:4). In contrast, as Philip Jones has written about Mountford on the 1948 Expedition in a paper called ‘Inside Mountford’s tent: Paint, politics and paperwork’ (Jones 2011:34): ‘Indeed, Mountford’s bluff demeanour and his utter lack of pretension better match the careers he transcended – those of the farmer, the tram conductor and the telegraph technician’.

When Fred McCarthy began his career at the Australian Museum at the age of 14, he was appointed to the position of library clerk, becoming embedded in the world of order and cataloguing that pertains to the life of a librarian. Some 10 years later, in 1930, he joined the Department of Birds and Reptiles, adding taxonomy to his kitbag of skills and training. In 1932 he became the assistant curator of ethnology and then curator following the death of William Thorpe in the same year. Mountford on the other hand started out life in farming and trades, developing over time an interest and skills in photography and filmmaking (Lamshed 1972). Here we can see a little something of the genesis to their different approaches – McCarthy, trained in the systematics of cataloguing and classification, is drawn to the detail, the context and the taxonomic relationships between the paintings. Mountford, on the other hand, has a photographer’s sensibility, his eye drawn to the singular and the exceptional, to the exemplary motifs that are representative of a corpus, all brought into sharp focus by the lens and framed by the dimensions of the photograph.

It is evident, we think, that the basic methodological and analytical frameworks laid down by McCarthy went a long way towards creating the foundations of contemporary rock art research in Australia. His insistence on the systematic recording of sites with a close reading of media, technique, spatial relationships, colour and superimpositioning is not so far from the field recordings carried out today. Where, of course, contemporary conceptual frameworks depart from McCarthy are the advances in chronology, regional variation and the application of scientific techniques of the analysis of pigments, rock surfaces and the like. Mountford’s work is far less applicable today, although he professed an interest in style and the ethnography of art – glossed as ‘myths’ and ‘legends’ in the language of the day – his work was fast surpassed by a new generation of anthropologists of art such as Nancy Munn, Howard Morphy and Fred Myers, and his work is rendered now, perhaps a little unfairly, as a curio, emblematic of its time. Philip Jones (2011:34) reads Mountford more generously:

Indeed in later life, Mountford was characterised more than once as a bumbling, opportunistic amateur with a tin ear, hardly capable of making sense of the rich anthropological data he gathered. Yet, with all their defects, Mountford’s Nomads of the Australian Desert (1976) and Art, Myth and Symbolism (1956) are works of substance and scholarship, and his extraordinary career as a discoverer and promoter of Aboriginal art is overdue for reassessment.

Perhaps this is, in the end, the lesson to be learned from the archives and records of the 1948 American–Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, that despite the feuding and bitter arguments, an extraordinary group of men and women carried out foundational research for a whole range of disciplines – archaeology, anthropology, botany, ecology and biology.

References

Altman, J. 2011. From Kunnanj, Fish Creek, to Mumeka, Mann River: Hunter-gatherer tradition and transformation in Western Arnhem Land, 1948–2009. In M. Thomas and M. Neale (eds), Exploring the legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, pp. 113–134. Canberra: ANU Press. doi.org/10.22459/ELALE.06.2011.06.

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