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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 52

Red hands

Red hands.

The existence of the remarkable marks on rocks in many places, known as "red hands," has occasionally attracted much attention. They are supposed to record some mysterious ceremony. They are found on the face of sandstone rocks, mostly in sheltered places On the face of the cliff at Greenwich, Parramatta River, seven fine impressions at one time existed; they have long since been quarried away. The most prolific places for them are at Cox's Creek, near the head of the Cudgegong River, about the Hawkesbury and Hunter rivers, and other places. Many years ago, when at the Shoalhaven River, a black undertook to show me something "very curious" as he termed it. On proceeding some distance up the river with him in a boat, we landed, and he then led me through a dense brush to a low cave or overhanging cliff, and pointed out two of these impressions. He told me that he found them accidentally, but could not account for their existence or how they were done.

These impressions are supposed to be made by dipping the hand in blood and then stamping it on the rock. They are often in relief, as the blood or pigment of which it is composed preserves the rock from the action of the atmosphere. I have never been able to obtain any account from the blacks as to their origin. It may be possible that they are the record of some religious or other ceremony, which the survivors were not allowed to speak about, and that the custom, in consequence, like many more in other parts of the world, has been gradually lost; but, again, as these marks include the imprint of the hands of women and children, there remains some doubt on this point.