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Diving Duck – GorrpurdaDuck – Gorrpurda

This artist has painted designs for two clans: Mapuy and Warrawarra. These are both Yirrichinga clans from the eastern bank of the Blyth River area in north-central Arnhem Land. These two clans are closely related and share a number of sites. One site they share is called Ji-gapala, where there is a dreaming for gorrpurda ‘diver duck’.

Gorrpurda travelled from the east, creating the landscape and naming clans as she went. She travelled across the land and underground in the same way that the diver duck dives from the air into the water, swims a long way underneath and then emerges from the water back into the air. She came from Mapuy clan and entered the ground at Ji-gapala, where she transformed into Warrawarra clan. The unity of the two clans is conveyed in this work with the combination of the diver duck emblem for Mapuy and the rectangular cross-hatched motif of Warrawarra.