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Nawarlah – Brown River Stingray

We hunt the Nawarlah (Brown River Stingray) during the wet season.  There is a plant with a yellow flower that tells us that it is the right time.  We know it will be fat. 

It is well known that Aboriginal art often depicts images of sacred totems or dreamings of Aboriginal culture. However, the world of the non-sacred also provides a rich source of subject matter for Aboriginal art. Much of the rock art of western Arnhem Land for example features secular topics such as common food animals and plants, depicted because of their economic importance but also merely because of their existence in the environment.

Categories: Maningrida Arts & Culture

Name: Samantha Malkudja

Language: Kuninjku

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Samantha Malkadja learned to weave from her mother Frewa Bardaluna, a master fibre artist who had numerous exhibitions with leading Australian commercial galleries.  Samantha’s work is distinguished by her soft tonal range, strong sense of design and intricate technique. Samantha makes panels and 2D sculptures which depict local fish and animal species and often yawkyawks, female water spirits.

Samantha predominately uses gun-menama (pandanus spiralis) in her works. To prepare the pandanus the inner leaves of the plant are collected using a hook. Each V-shaped leaf is first split in half along its spine. After removing the sharp spines, the two surfaces of the leaf are then split away from other. After this preparation, the pandanus is boiled in a billycan with plant materials to dye the fibre. Like her contemporaries, Samantha only uses natural dyes and achieves enormous variation. 

 

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