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Saratoga
This is a painting of two ngaldadmurrng saratoga fish [Scleropages jardini] sometimes also called the Northern Spotted Barramundi. Saratoga are commonly found in creeks, rivers and billabongs around the artist’s clan estate. The animals depicted are on one level easy to recognize and their meaning is easily accessible. On a deeper level the animals are depicted with intense rarrk – cross-hatched – infill which creates a reference to Mardayin ceremonial mysticism. Saratogas make their nests on the bottom of river beds in the sand by digging with their tails and fins and lay eggs into these depressions. During mortuary rituals the Kuninjku imitate these nests in sand sculpture. At the end of funerals all those who have attended the funeral are required to stand in the ‘saratoga’s nest’ and they are doused with water to be cleansed from the polluting effects of the deceased. A large meteorite crater near Mumeka in the Liverpool River district is said to be the nest of the saratoga which now stands in the landscape as djang – a sacred site.
111982125518
Man-ngalinj (bush potato)
Man-ngalinj is a root vegetable often described as ‘bush potato’. It’s duwa, the artist’s moiety. It has a bulbous root and a long thin vine with small flowers that grows across the ground or up the trunks of nearby trees. Large crops can be found near the artist’s outstation, Bolkdjam. Man-ngalinj are harvested after the Wet season in the early Dry
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Kunkale Wobe (Fishtrap Fence)
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Mandjabu
Kuninjku people traditionally make two sorts of conical fish traps. One called Mandjabu made from milil a vine. And another smaller one called manyilk Mandjabu, made from the grass manylik. The milil conical fish trap is bigger and stronger and used in tidal reaches of creeks to catch large fish. the smaller and lighter manylik trap is used in freshwater flowing creeks to catch smaller fish and freshwater prawns. Traditionally only men were involved in the construction of the large fish traps, but smaller children were used to crawl inside and assist.
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Flying Fox
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Birlmu or Namarnkorl (Barramundi)
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. The artist has painted ‘birlmu’ or ‘namarnkorl’ (Barramundi [Lates calcarifer]). During the dry season the barramundi is an important food source for inland Aboriginal people. These fish are caught throughout the artist’s clan estate, either in fishtraps woven from pandanus or sedge grass, or else hunted with spears and fishing lines in billabongs and streams where they shelter from the sun under fallen logs or amongst the leaves of water plants.