Mount Kariong – Daramulan

Summary: A Daramulan figure on a spur off Mt Kariong; it's the last of five Aboriginal engraving sites documented by Ian Sim.

  • Site type: Rock engraving
  • Number of motifs: 1
  • Motif/s: Daramulan, Deity
  • Quality: 2.5/5
  • Condition of site: Good
  • View site sketch
  • Year first recorded: 1966
  • Originally Recorded by: F.D. McCarthy, Ian Sim, Bob Pankhurst
  • McCarthy reference: PATONGA Mankind Group 161 Series 5 in Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)
  • Sim Reference: Mankind Vol 8 No. 6 (1966). Sheet 2, Fig D. p.352-3

This single figure is the last of five Aboriginal engraving sites documented by Ian Simalong a spur off the main Mount Kariong ridge. A Daramulan figure sits on a flat rock at the end of the spur.

…this impressive figure probably represents Daramulan in the guise of a koala. It raises the problem as to whether the Daramulan profile figure was derived from the koala, but Daramulan occurs in western NSW where koalas do not occur as they like forest country.

McCarthy (1983)
1X3A8267 LR Mount Kariong - Daramulan

The “koala type figure” is described by McCarthy as being in a “seated posture, big half oval head longer than high, 2 eyes, straight face, pointed chin, neck, broad humped body in one convex and two straight sections, flat rump, foreleg upraised at 45°, rounded elbow, wrist and hand bent downward, 5 digits, front of body straight from foreleg to end of straight hind leg which has a round end and one toe in the middle.

1X3A8256 LR Mount Kariong - Daramulan
1X3A8256 LR enhanced Mount Kariong - Daramulan

Most of the five digits on the Daramulan’s hand can be seen.

1X3A8269 LR Mount Kariong - Daramulan
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