It has been argued that laundry blue (whitener) was introduced into western Arnhem Land in the second half of the 1920s by missionaries, where it was used by Aboriginal people in rock art and on a variety of objects. Recent examination of museum collections acquired from the Northern Territory Native Industrial Mission at Kapalga in today’s Kakadu National Park, shows that the introduction of laundry blue into local Aboriginal artistic practices was earlier, around 1900. We discuss two examples of objects painted with laundry blue, a fibre basket and a bark belt, as well as broader ethnographic evidence relating to the significance of the color blue. We argue that the use of laundry blue is not only the result of access to an exotic new color but also has links to existing cultural beliefs.

有人争辩说，蓝色的洗衣粉（增白剂）是由传教士于1920年代下半叶引入西方的阿纳姆地带的，土著居民将其用于岩石艺术和各种物体上。最近对从今天的卡卡杜国家公园的卡帕尔加（Kapalga）国家公园领取的北领地土著工业代表团的博物馆收藏进行的研究表明，将洗衣蓝引入当地土著艺术实践的时间更早，大约是1900年。我们讨论了两个用洗衣蓝绘的物体的例子，纤维篮和树皮带，以及与蓝色的含义有关的更广泛的人种学证据。我们认为，洗衣蓝的使用不仅是获得一种新奇异色彩的结果，而且还与现有的文化信仰息息相关。