Palau’s cherished oral traditions are vessels of ancestral knowledge and cultural practices passed through the centuries from generation to generation. Treasured oral traditions associate the rock carvings of Olebakelderau with the burial of the legendary beauty Surech, and attribute Palau’s rock paintings to Orachl, a demi-god of the misty past.

According to legend, four triangular figures carved onto a large boulder at Olebakelderau mark the burial of Surech’s headless body. A version of the story says that when a high chief requested to see Surech, presumably to take her as his wife, her lover Tulei showed the high chief only her severed head in order to avoid losing her.

Oral traditions hold that the demi-god Orachl drew images with a quill made from a coconut spathe using ink derived from red ochre. The names for images drawn by Orachl on the backs of crabs - urresel or llecheklel Orachl (Orachl’s drawings) - are the Palauan words for rock paintings and the elaborate decorations painted on bai(community meeting houses).

Orachl's final drawings, made just before he turned to stone, was the spectacular rock art on the island of Ulong. Except for the story shared above, there are no other known narratives about the rock paintings in Palau's extensive collection of legends and myths. Their purpose, meaning, and locations are perhaps forgotten or restricted sacred knowledge.

One confirmed and one potential rock carving site are located in the interior of the large volcanic island of Babeldaob. At the base of the Olebakelderau earthwork, four triangular forms are engraved onto the face of a large basalt boulder. A single faint linear human form that requires further investigation to verify may be incised into the rockshelter of Ii ra Ngebesek. Palau’s ten known rock painting sites are located 10 to 15 meters above the waterline in marine notches and cliff faces on seven Rock Islands. Ranging from several centimeters to a meter tall, paintings occur as single motifs, in panels, and, at Olechukl Ears Ulong, in a dense mural. The sites of Ulong and Taberrakl host the most elaborate assemblages.

Palau’s rock paintings were executed in red pigment; in a few instances yellow may also have been used. Paint application ranges from thickly-smudged to fine-lined. The most frequently-painted motifs are geometric, linear, and in-filled shapes and handprints, as well as spoked, rayed, and concentric circles. A few naturalistic paintings depict what appear to be boats, human-like forms, birds, fish, possible crocodiles, and reptile or paw prints.

Based on their depth, weathering, and available local materials, Palau’s rock engravings may have been incised using stone tools. The pigment used in Palau’s rock paintings may be red ochre. Oil extracted from the fruit seed of the cheritem (Atuna racemosa) tree, commonly used in the paint applied to bai and war canoes, could have served as a pigment binder.

Ochre and cheritem are not available on the limestone terrain of the Rock Islands and had to be transported, possibly through trade, from Palau’s volcanic islands. Those living on these northern islands could have carried the ingredients in their canoes as they traveled through the Rock Islands.

(Right) What appears to be a boat with birds on either end above abstract and geometric shapes at Taberrakl.

Many of the thick-lined images and abstract shapes could have been created with a blunt instrument like a finger. Fine-lined drawings and those with precise, neat edges may have been painted with a formal brush or other tool, such as a spathe of coconut fiber as told in the legend of Orachl. Stippled pigment application is present at Olechukl Ears Ulong.

(Below left) Interconnected four-sided, curvilinear motifs at Oimad Merach. (Below right) A human-like image with large round eyes wearing what might be a headpiece at Taberrakl. The shield-like figure, the rectangle containing curvy geometric shapes, is also painted at Olechukl Ears Ulong.

Palau’s painted and engraved rock art sites were intentionally situated within a greater storied cultural landscape. Palau’s confirmed rock engravings mark a storied place and anchor oral tradition to the cultural landscape. With the bright red designs painted on white limestone cliffs high above and facing the waters below, rock paintings were clearly visible to passing canoes or the spirits and gods of the air and sea.

Rock paintings may have been deliberately placed in difficult to access but easily visible locations. Most paintings are located in elevated marine notches, deep horizontal grooves caused by erosion. A few paintings are on sheer cliff faces that could only be reached with tools like rope ladders. Painting locations are somewhat distant from traditional villages and known activity areas.

Mentioned briefly in oral traditions, with no archaeological correlations and few known similarities to Palau’s surviving traditional designs, the symbolic meaning(s) of the painted rock art is currently a mystery. It may have served one or many cultural purposes, functions, and meanings. Since most painted sites display their own distinct designs, each location may tell a unique story.

Initial studies show little similarity between the rock paintings and traditional artwork pictured in the ethnohistoric record, such as the paintings on the bai, even though both are traditionally identified as Orachl’s drawings. These long-term changes in symbolic designs may relate to the passage of time and an evolving society.

Olechukl Ears Ulong is Palau’s most dense and spectacular rock painting site, and one of the premiere rock painting sites in the Pacific. A densely packed mural of over 50 red painted images cover the walls and ceiling of an elevated notch on the Rock Island of Ulong.

Olechukl Ears Ulong’s stylized and diverse designs are generally well-preserved and exhibit greater artistic attention - e.g., finer precision, design, and composition - than Palau’s other rock painting sites. The mostly geometric or curvileaner images are often combined to create complex patterns. Figurative images include animal prints, several fish, humanoid faces, and four highly stylized anthropomorphs.

Only at Olechukl Ears Ulong are a relatively small number of paintings hidden from view within an adjoining rock shelter complex. Also, at Ulong, at least two red pigmented images are overlain by an unknown yellow substance, which may represent a later episode of rock art creation with yellow pigment or result from weathering, fungus, or another natural phenomenon.

Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggest Palau was settled about 3,400 years ago by Austronesian speaking people from Island Southeast Asia. Creation of the painted rock art very early in Palau’s settlement history is suggested by multiple lines of evidence. By contrast, oral traditions regarding Palau’s engraved rock may potentially indicate the rock engravings are younger than the rock paintings.

The absence of stories related to the rock paintings in Palau’s extensive body of cherished myths, legends, and customary practices directly related to the Rock Islands, implies their meanings may be long forgotten or perhaps the paintings contain restricted knowledge. In another illusion to their antiquity, Palau’s rock paintings are stylistically different from surviving artistic heritage.

Early settlers may have brought rock painting to Palau. This is suggested by the strong resemblance between Palau’s rock paintings and the Austronesian Painting Tradition (APT), a style of rock art in eastern Indonesia and West Papua that may be 3500 years old. Millennia ago, the APT spread with voyagers and colonists north to Palau and east into eastern Melanesia.

Palau’s rock paintings embody many APT characteristics: the use of red pigment, many motif styles, and location in difficult to access yet highly visible cliffs overlooking the sea. Missing in Palau is the APT’s characteristic archaeological or ethnographic association of rock paintings with human burial activities. Some Palauan motifs are not found in the APT, indicating that that over time Palauan settlers developed their own painting style.

Museo Nacional y Centro de Investigación de Altamira
Subdirección General de Museos Estatales
Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte

Belau National Museum
Ministry of Human Resources, Culture, Tourism and Development of the Republic of Palau

Subdirección General de Gestión y Coordinación de Bienes Culturales
Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte

The contents of this exhibition have been produced collaboratively. The generous assistance and information provided by esteemed community informants Dirrengulbai Sariang Timulch of Palau’s Society of Historians and Kautechang Vince Blaiyok a member of Palau’s Historical and Cultural Advisory Board, Pat Colin, Alex Ferrier-Loh, Rachel Hoerman, Jolie Liston, Sylvia Kloulubak, Ron Leidich, Jess Merrill, Pia Morei, Macstyl O. Sasao, Kiblas Soaladaob, Mark Willis, and the capable and knowledgeable staff and crew of Paddling Palau made this content possible.

Pilar Fatás y Sofía Cuadrado (Museo de Altamira)

NEXO

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