Accessed by a hole in the roof where part of the sandstone has collapsed, this Aboriginal rock art shelter near Murrays Run is surprisingly spacious once inside (it’s about ten metres long and four metres deep). A large “tongue-shaped” pillar of rock is suspended from the ceiling, forming a natural seat or bench.
Charcoal figures span most of the back wall of the shelter, and they are still very distinct.
On the left are a series of kangaroos; the figures have been outlined with chalk or white ochre (it’s not clear whether this was done by Europeans, but it was reported as being vandalism in 1967).
Next to the kangaroos is a motif which appears to be a human figure, but has also been described as an anthropomorph.
To the right is a “series of copulating couples”; the four human figures overlapping.
Unlike the kangaroos, these figures are not infilled, and are all still very distinct.
At the very end is a small, charcoal boomerang; there may be a link between this boomerang and the nearby Murrays Run Stencil Shelter site.
There are references to this shelter having been “used in the defloration ceremonies for young girls” and it has been informally called the Maiden Defloration Cave: “A cave in the lower Wollombi Brook area, called the Maiden Defloration Cave, was also used for instruction” (Paul Budde). This practice has been documented in many parts of Australia, but not a great detail is known and very little specific to this area:
Defloration parallels male circumcision as a rite of passage into adulthood and is also carried out through successive interconnected rites. It is preceded by several minor puberty rites celebrating the sprouting of breasts and other stages of physical development. Women mark these stages by gathering together and performing certain rituals and songs.
Robert Lawlor, Voices of the first day: awakening in the Aboriginal dreamtime
However, W.J. Needham (who has extensively researched the Hunter area and this shelter) explains that this defloration interpretation came from a site in Western Australia, and was erroneously applied to this shelter: “it is not known what traditionally occurred at this site, who used the site or what the charcoal drawings represent, though a crude interpretation would be that the subject matter is self-evident”.
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