June 2023

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Ngalyod (Rainbow Serpent)

The rainbow serpent is a powerful mythological figure for all Aboriginal people throughout Australia. Characteristics of the rainbow serpent vary greatly from group to group and also depending on the site. Often viewed as a female generative figure, the rainbow serpent can sometimes also be male. She has both powers of creation and destruction and is most strongly associated with rain, monsoon seasons and of course the colour seen in rainbows which arc across the sky like a giant serpent. For Aboriginal people in Northern Australia, the rainbow serpent is said to be active during the wet season.

Known as Ngalyod in the Kuninjku language of western central Arnhem Land, the rainbow serpent is mostly associated with bodies of water such as billabongs, creeks, rivers and waterfalls where she resides. Therefore she is responsible for the production of most water plants such as water lilies, water vines, algae and palms, which grow near water. The roar of waterfalls in the escarpment country is said to be her voice. Large holes in stony banks of rivers and cliff faces are said to be her tracks. She is held in awe because of her apparent ability to renew her life by shedding her skin and emerging anew. Aboriginal myths about the rainbow serpent often describe her as a fearful creature that swallows humans only to regurgitate them, transformed by her blood. The white ochre used by artists to create the brilliant white paint for bark paintings, body decoration and in the past, rock art, is said to be the faeces of the rainbow serpent.

Aboriginal people today respect and care take sacred sites where the rainbow serpent is said to reside. Often certain activities are forbidden at these places for fear that the wrath of the great snake will cause sickness, accidents and even tempests. This is not always the case however and there are many rainbow serpent sites today where people may enter to hunt, fish or swim. By painting this figure on bark today, Aboriginal people are carrying on the longest uninterrupted mythological tradition in the world, which has been the subject of art and ceremony for possibly thousands of years.

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Mat

Mats can vary greatly. Artists commonly use a mix of naturally dyed and undyed fibre to create a striking variation of coloured bands. Some artists also incorporate different types of looping to produce different patterns and textured finishes. Each type of mat, fibre bag, basket and dilly bag has its own name in the various languages spoken in the Maningrida region.

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Ngaldadmurrng

This is a painting of 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 animal depicted is on one level easy to recognise and it’s meaning is easily accessible. On a deeper level the animal is depicted with intense rarrk ‘cross hatched’ infill, which creates a reference to Mardayin ceremonial mysticism. 

Saratoga makes their nests on the bottom of riverbeds 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 nests’ 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’. 

In painting this image Marawarr is continuing a long tradition of figurative artistic practice carried out by Arnhem Land.

 

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Galawon (Goanna)

This painting depicts two goannas embedded in an intricate depiction of gungara, the mini cyclones common during the wet season in Arnhem Land. Gungara also relates specifically to the Bilwoyinj site. At this site, two of the most important Kuninjku creation beings, a father and son, hunted and ate goanna. They left some goanna fat behind, which turned into the rock that still stands at the site today.

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Ngaldadmurrng

This is a painting of 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 animal depicted is on one level easy to recognise and it’s meaning is easily accessible. On a deeper level the animal is depicted with intense rarrk ‘cross hatched’ infill, which creates a reference to Mardayin ceremonial mysticism. 

Saratoga makes their nests on the bottom of riverbeds 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 nests’ 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’. 

In painting this image Marawarr is continuing a long tradition of figurative artistic practice carried out by Arnhem Land.

 

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Ngalkodjek Yawkyawk

This artwork depicts the Ngalkodjek Yawkyawk of Barrihdjowkkeng country.

“This story is very old. That old man [my father Crusoe Kuningbal] when he was alive, told that story to me, to all of us. He told us about the yawkyawk (mermaid) spirit women called Ngalkodjek who lives in the billabong on my country. He told us how they call out loudly, how they call out as they walk along.

That is what they do, calling out. They walked around eating bush foods like those little bush yams. They would pound the yams into a pulp and eat them. That is their traditional food which they eat.

When they walk down from the bush, they follow a set path that belongs to them and they walk along calling out. That is their path which they take. It is an old traditional route.

They placed a woman’s breast into the country. That rock was not there originally, but it was a woman’s breast. It is the breast of those women.

They put that djang [sacred place] there, and then at the time when non-Aboriginal people arrived in the region, then the breast turned to stone. Now it has turned solid into rock.”

– Owen Yalandja

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Galawon (Goanna)

This painting depicts two goannas embedded in an intricate depiction of gungara, the mini cyclones common during the wet season in Arnhem Land. Gungara also relates specifically to the Bilwoyinj site. At this site, two of the most important Kuninjku creation beings, a father and son, hunted and ate goanna. They left some goanna fat behind, which turned into the rock that still stands at the site today.

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Yok (Bandicoot)

The ancestral site for yok (bandicoot) is a hill called kordeme near Buluhkaduru outstation. It is a restricted place. People used to hunt yok regularly, however they are rarely seen anymore. Lena Yarinkura explains that in the past djungkay (cultural managers) would perform rituals at the site, calling out all different kured (country): Korlobidahdah, Mankorlod, Buluhkaduru, Ankadbarrbirri, Malyarngak, Ramingining, Ji-balbal, Ji-be – na. Baby yok would then spread throughout these areas. However, today there are fewer yok as djungkay have not been able to perform these rituals as often. Yok also has a powerful inside essence, mardayin, but this work is an ‘out – side’, public story.

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Ngukal Golden Travelly

This painting is a depiction of Nguykal, the Golden Trevally [Gnathanodon speciosus]. In the early times of creation, Nguykal, the Trevally ancestor, travelled as two fish from the east along the coast. As he travelled along the coast he named clans or bapurru. These clans include Gamarl, Mardarrpa, Ritjarrngu, Gumatj, Dhalwangu, Wan.gurri and Warramiri. When Nguykal reached Gu-mugumuk on the east coast of Cape Stewart he leaped from the sea and landed inland at Gamurra Gu-yurra on Warrawarra clan lands. This created the sacred dreaming called Baltha, which is represented in design as a forked shape, reminiscent of the tail of a fish. Baltha stands as a tree at Gamurra Gu-yurra, and the forked shape that the main branches make with the trunk betray its sacred associations.
The Trevally ancestor then returned to the sea and kept travelling around Yinangarnduwa (Cape Stewart). Upon reaching Burnbuwa, a site midway between Yinangarnduwa and Yilan outstation, he became frightened by the appearance of lunggurrma, the clouds and rain associated with the northwest monsoon, which originated from beneath the sea. At this point the two fish separated. One of the Nguykal ancestors went inside at Burnbuwa and remains there as a dreaming, while the other returned back to the east and kept travelling until he reached the Yirrkala area. There he named a site Burnbuwa, which marks the link between these places.
In the painting we can see trevally swimming in two lines. This reflects close observation of the behaviour of schools of trevally, which spend much time swimming in and around the rocky reefs that lie close to shore along the north-central Arnhem Land coast. The formation swimming of the trevally has a religious dimension, and when the Gamarl and their close clansmen dance the Trevally ancestor, they also dance in formation like a school of fish and at one stage two groups of men will dance towards each other.
The cross-hatched stripes of infill deviding the fish represent rrawa or country at Burnbuwa and other places along the north-eastern Arnhem Land coast where Nguykal swam. Ganyjibala has depicted the country in sections, here overlayed with bird tracks, to indicate that different clan groups own this country. These groups each hold tenure over separate sections of country, but together they form a ‘company’ of related clans. These clans form a network linked by a system of reciprocal kinship and ceremonial ties. The Golden Trevally Ancestor is the mythological explanation for the links between the different clan groups, and today the celebration of Nguykal’s creation journey in song, dance and design by the members of these groups continues to strengthen the kinship and ceremonial links between the members of these clans

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Warraburnburn

In Burarra and Gun-nartpa languages the figure represented in this artwork is generally known as a wangarra ‘ghost spirit’. For the Warrawarra clan ghost spirits have their own particular characteristics and their own name – Warraburnburn.

The Warraburnburn and the closely related Galabarrbarr spirit (owned by the Balkarranga clan) are also manikay song topics.  The spirits are related to each other as maternal grandparent and grandchild, just as the people of Warrawarra and Balkarranga are. The dancing of the two ghost spirit figures forms the finale performance for funerals, and is the final goodbye to a deceased family member.

In many ways the Warraburnburn and Galabarrbarr ghost spirits are like people. They emerge from the patches of jungle on Warrawarra and Balkarranga country in the late afternoon and go hunting in family groups of men, women and children. They stay in contact with each other by calling out as the men hunt for fish and the women walk with their dillybags looking for vegetable food. 

The ghost spirits are associated closely with white ochre and artists commonly paint the bodies of carved figures in white. Different types of ghost spirit wear different patterns. Warraburnburn is decorated with uniform white dots while others are painted white all over. Some ghost spirits are shown with a design painted on their chest infilled with rarrk ‘cross-hatching’, the same designs that are painted onto japi an-guyinda ‘male initiations’. 

They also have supernatural characteristics including superhuman size (jarra anbaykarda ‘super tall’). They know the country intimately – some are malevolent towards humans and will lead people astray, taking them to unfamiliar and dangerous places. These malevolent spirits are likened to an-muburda ‘sorcerers’ and can conduct dangerous rituals that cause harm to people. Others are benign and will lead humans back to familiar paths and their own camps.