Smiths Creek Baiame, Cottage Point NSW

An unusual depiction of Baiame at an Aboriginal engraving site above Cottage Point Road. The figure has two horns, and is holding a shield and a dilly bag.

One of the most striking Aboriginal engravings around Cottage Point, this ten-foot high man or deity takes up most of a small rock outcrop on a ridge above Cottage Point Road. He was documented by both W.D. Campbell and R.H. Mathews in the 1890s, Mathews describing him as a “an aboriginal warrior with his clubs, shield and boomerang, having his head decorated in the usual manner”. McCarthy many years later described him as “an ancestral being of the Baiami type”.

The Baiame (deity) figure is holding a shield in one hand; in the other he is holding a boomerang or cone-headed club. From his left arm hangs a dilly bag, “probably a string or netted bag containing magical objects” (McCarthy).