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Namorrorddo a profane spirit

Namorrorddo is a profane spirit sometimes called a ‘bad angel’ in Aboriginal English.

The Namorrorddo is a yirridjdja moiety being associated with the Yabbadurruwa regional cult ceremony.

Namorrorddo sits upon a rock and is usually painted with long claw like hands and feet. Sometimes spurs protrude from the elbows somewhat like those of a flying fox. Namorrorddo carries light, which emanates from his head. The shooting stars seen at night are Namorrorddo travelling across the night sky.

He whistles an eerie cry, which Aboriginal people say they can hear at night from time to time. Namorrorddo is feared as an evil being who attacks humans by clubbing them with his fighting stick or miyarrul. Namorrorddo is also sometimes depicted carrying bamboo spears and a spear thrower. Namorrorddo is a major dreaming totem for the Kardbam clan. There are a few examples of images of Namorrorddo painted in rock shelters in the Mann and Liverpool Rivers district.

Categories: Maningrida Arts & Culture

Name: Jack Yurrulbbirri Nawilil

Language: Rembarrnga, Mayali

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Mayali and Rembarrnga artist Kamarrang Jack Nawilil is a senior member of the Balngarra clan, who lives and works at Bolkjdam, an outstation located near Maningrida community in central Arnhem Land. A song man and cultural leader, he works across painting on bark, carved sculpture and ceremonial objects such as mularra (morning star poles), mako (didgeridoo), lorrkkon (hollow logs) and body adornments using feathers, native beeswax and hand-spun bark fibre string. Common subjects of his work include representations of significant spirit beings, such as wyarra (skeleton), wurum (fish-increasing) and namorrodo (profane) spirits, and important ancestors, including the female creator ancestor Ngalkodjek who travelled from Elcho Island in the East.

The narratives represented in Nawilil’s artworks are extremely complex and often antithetical to Western knowledge systems. His artworks reference and manifest multiple places, clans and events that span vast distances and timeframes. To audiences who are not initiated and socialised in bininj (Aboriginal) cultural practices and history, the true and complete meanings of these artworks cannot be fully grasped. His artworks challenge the viewer to grapple with a different way of being in, and understanding, the world.

Nawilil’s work is held in public and private collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. He has exhibited with commercial galleries around Australia and overseas for nearly four decades.

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© the artist / art centre