Aboriginal Wunda Shield

The wunda shield is stylistically recognizable by a series of longitudinal grooves infilled with alternating red and white ochre.  In this classification, the designs can vary significantly.  These shields were once used and traded across Western Australia and even into South Australia along trade routes. Although widely distributed in the region, the shields appear to have been produced along the West Australian coastal between the Gascoyne and Murchison rivers. Like many forms of Aboriginal shields, wunda were used in fighting for protection against projectile weapons, such as spears and boomerangs. They were also carried by performers in ritual contexts, especially when reenacting specific episodes from the Dream Time, in which ancestral beings were said to have been armed with shields.

Zigzag designs in Western Australia appear to have been widely associated with rain and water. Broad patterns formed from nested zigzag motifs, such as those that appear on the wunda shields, are variously interpreted as representing ripple marks on the sand, floodwaters, or the ripples made by the wind on the surface of large bodies of water.

This shield is in good condition on a custom metal stand.  The two dark patches on the top back section of the shield are spinifex resin