Summary: The Topham Trig Station engraving site is one of great ceremonial significance. It has a Daramulan figure, as well as a man and woman.

A large smooth rock in a natural amphitheatre below Topham Trig has a a number of interesting Aboriginal engravings. McCarthy described the Topham Trig Station engraving site site as being “of great ceremonial significance, and it’s unfortunate that its precies meaning is unknown. The culture hero holding the boomerang, a weapon imbued with magical power in his hands, is the subject of a myth widespread in Australia“.

IMG 3611 LR Topham Trig Station engraving site

The largest and most distinct is that of a large deity, or Daramulan, who seems to be looking backwards (to the east).

AWAT5927 LR Topham Trig Station engraving site

The deity is just under ten feet tall, and has two outspread arms. He is holding a boomerang in one hand, and a half-engraved boomerang is below his other hand. His penis is carved in an unusual way, with stripes.

montage stitch LR 1 Topham Trig Station engraving site

The ancestral figure is much more distinct than the nearby figures, suggesting that they were either carved at differrent periods – or the ancestral being was re-grooved on many occasions.

To the east of the deity is a woman with upraised arms, who is about six feet tall. Beside her is what is possibly a baby, and below her a pointed oval – “probably indicating she has urinated and defecated”.

AWAT6062 LR Topham Trig Station engraving site

The images below show some more detail of the woman’s rayed headress,

On the deity’s left (west) is a man with a “tall, half oval head, 2 eyes, hair coiled and bound into a peaked shape at an angle on his head, half upraised slightly curved arms”. His long penis is bent upward.

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