Drawing depicting figures performing ceremonial duties in the Coranderrk region of Victoria, by William Barak, 1895

Drawing by William Barak in pencil, black and red ochre earth pigments and watercolour on paper. The drawing depicts two groups of figures performing a ceremony. Born in 1824, William Barak was an Aboriginal leader whose skills as a diplomat were legendary. Renowned as the ngurungaeta or headman of the Wurundjeri clan of the Woiworung people (Kulin nation), whose land encompasses the present-day city of Melbourne, he was reputedly among those to witness the arrival of John Batman and his party at Port Phillip as a twelve-year-old child. Barak's paintings depict important features of Aboriginal society. He left a distinctive and valuable record of his culture in the fifty or so surviving drawings that are held in private and public collections today.