Hand signature, Ubirr, NT

The Aboriginal people did not have a written language so they used the
painting of their hands as identification. This was not normally an
individual identification but rather that of a local group and signified
that the land was theirs. Sometimes the fingers were all drawn, other times
perhaps one finger was folded down, the thumb held up or similar as local
group identification.

We saw a number of these hand paintings and once we were aware that they
were in fact an identification signature they were much more interesting to
us.