‘When we go out hunting we find bush potatoes, the long ones. They are called bulwud sp?. (Kuninjku) The flower is long and we follow the stem to the potato root. We peel it eat the white part. When we cook them they taste like potato.’ Lucy Yarawanga
The first tile has different types of kunmadj (dillybag) and marebu (floormat) made with Kundayarr (Pandanus).
‘There are two djerr (dilly bags), one basket, two marebu (floormats) and one kunmadj in this tile. This is how we carry and collect our bush tucker. This basket in the middle with two handles is made with the coil technique. This is a strong basket for clothes, swag, manburrba (clothing, cloth). We use the floormat to sleep on the ground or carry baby. This is from our old peoples time.
The other tile is kundayarr – pandanus tree and small billabongs with mud and water and grasses. There are 5 billabongs in this tile. We use this kundayarr to make the all the dillybag, kunmadj, marebu and djerr in the other tile. Kunmadj we carry on the head when we are collecting manme (bush tucker). We strip the kundayarr and then we use colour (botanical dyes) to make the different colour. Then we tie up the pandanus.’
Deborah Wurrkidj 2022
Works in fibre from the Maningrida region are widely recognised as some of the finest in Australia. Artists confidently push the boundaries of fibre craft and cultural expression, adapting traditional techniques and forms to produce strikingly inventive and aesthetically exquisite artworks.
Artists usually use kundayarr, pandanus spiralis, to weave decorative round or oblong mats, as well as the less common triangular and conical shapes. Weaving is physically hard work, now done only by women. They colour the pandanus using natural dyes made from the roots, leaves or flowers of plants within the weaver’s clan estate.
Deborah has used the root of Man-Kurdudjumuk (coelospermun reticulatum) to dye the fabric a beautiful yellow. This fabric has been dyed on country in the outstation of Kakodbubuldi and later printed in our Maningrida studio. Feathers, basket weaves and pandanus plants are pictured.
This fabric was created using the linocut printing technique. The lino tile was carved by the artist in Maningrida and printed by hand using a variety of colours and layers. The linocut technique ensures each textile piece is a one-off, limited edition piece.
The first tile has different types of kunmadj (dillybag) and marebu (floormat) made with Kundayarr (Pandanus).
‘There are two djerr (dilly bags), one basket, two marebu (floormats) and one kunmadj in this tile. This is how we carry and collect our bush tucker. This basket in the middle with two handles is made with the coil technique. This is a strong basket for clothes, swag, manburrba (clothing, cloth). We use the floormat to sleep on the ground or carry baby. This is from our old peoples time.
The other tile is kundayarr – pandanus tree and small billabongs with mud and water and grasses. There are 5 billabongs in this tile. We use this kundayarr to make the all the dillybag, kunmadj, marebu and djerr in the other tile. Kunmadj we carry on the head when we are collecting manme (bush tucker). We strip the kundayarr and then we use colour (botanical dyes) to make the different colour. Then we tie up the pandanus.’
Deborah Wurrkidj 2022
Works in fibre from the Maningrida region are widely recognised as some of the finest in Australia. Artists confidently push the boundaries of fibre craft and cultural expression, adapting traditional techniques and forms to produce strikingly inventive and aesthetically exquisite artworks.
Artists usually use kundayarr, pandanus spiralis, to weave decorative round or oblong mats, as well as the less common triangular and conical shapes. Weaving is physically hard work, now done only by women. They colour the pandanus using natural dyes made from the roots, leaves or flowers of plants within the weaver’s clan estate.
Deborah has used the root of Man-Kurdudjumuk (coelospermun reticulatum) to dye the fabric a beautiful yellow. This fabric has been dyed on country in the outstation of Kakodbubuldi and later printed in our Maningrida studio. Feathers, basket weaves and pandanus plants are pictured.
Kunmadj is the Kuninjku term for large woven collecting baskets, known as dillybags.
They are often made from the burney vine (Malaisia scandens), a strong, pliable plant that grows along the ground and into the canopy of monsoon vine thickets. The baskets are used to collect a variety of heavy foods, such as fish caught in conical fish traps or a good harvest of yams. As well as being of practical use, dillybags are of cultural significance to Arnhem Land people. Dillybags are totemic objects and they are associated with particular sites in the landscape.
Bidyadanga is a community located on the Kimberley coast in Western Australia, where the Great Sandy Desert meets the sea. The word Bidyadanga is derived from pijarta/ bidyada (emu watering hole).
This work portrays an area known intimately to the artist, painted here from memory. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), and different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation) were carefully observed and remembered. Today, this relationship with Country remains equally strong, despite the movement of Martu out of the desert and into remote Aboriginal communities, towns and cities.
Also visible may be traces of life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire). A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is visible in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.
Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land.
This work portrays an area known intimately to the artist, painted here from memory. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), and different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation) were carefully observed and remembered. Today, this relationship with Country remains equally strong, despite the movement of Martu out of the desert and into remote Aboriginal communities, towns and cities.
Also visible may be traces of life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire). A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is visible in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.
Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land.
Jigalong Aboriginal Community, the largest of the Martu communities, is located on the western edge of the Little Sandy Desert, not far from the town of Newman. Jigalong was established in 1907 as the site for a maintenance and rations store for workmen constructing the Rabbit Proof Fence, and was converted into a camel breeding site in the 1930’s before finally becoming a Christian mission under the Apostolic Church in 1947. Old Jigalong is where the camp on Jigalong Station was situated before the present Community was built. Jigalong and its surrounding land was returned to the Martu in 1974.
For many Martu, Jigalong Mission was the site where their pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) lifestyle came to an end from the late 1940s. From this time, they mostly transitioned to a life as stockmen and women working in cattle stations in the Pilbara region and beyond. In the wake of the extreme and prolonged drought of the 1960s, the last of the remaining pujimanpa (desert dwellers) were forced to move to missions like Jigalong, where a supply of food and water was assured. There, many were reunited with family members that had already moved in from the desert.