February 2025

Lorrkon (Hollow Log)

The Lorrkon or bone pole coffin ceremony was the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log which was decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed into the ground where it remained until it slowly decayed over many years.

The log is made from a termite hollowed Stringybark tree (Eucalyptus tetradonta) and is decorated with totemic emblems. The western Arnhem Land version of the Lorrkon ceremony involves the singing of sacred songs to the accompaniment of karlikarli, a pair of sacred boomerangs used as rhythm instruments. During the final evening of the ceremony, dancers decorate themselves with kapok down, or today, cotton wool and conduct much of the final segments of the ceremony in the secrecy of a restricted mens’ camp. The complete ceremony may stretch over a period of two weeks, but on the last night the bones of the deceased, which have been kept in a bark container or today wrapped in cloth and kept in a suitcase are taken out, are painted with red ochre and placed inside the hollow log. This ceremony may take place many years after the person has died.

At first light on the final morning of the Lorrkon ceremony, the men appear, coming out of their secret bush camp carrying the pole towards the women’s camp. The two groups call to each other using distinct ceremonial calls. The women have prepared a hole for the pole to be placed into and when it is stood upright, women in particular kinship relationships to the deceased dance around the pole in a jumping/shuffling motion. The Lorrkon is then often covered with a tarpaulin and left to slowly decay.

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.

Kun-madj – large dillybag vine

Kun-madj, or dilly bag, is a large woven collecting basket. These large bags are often made from the vine ‘Malasia scandens’, a strong pliable plant which grows along the floor and into the canopy of monsoon vine thickets. The bags are used to collect any kind of large numbers of heavy foods such as fish caught in conical fish traps or large collections of yams.

They can also be made from Pandanus spiralis, a plant which grows in many areas of Arnhem Land. These dilly bags are a tightly woven collecting basket, very finely made. These dilly bags are often used to collect sugarbag, the native honey

As well as being of practical use, dilly bags are also of religious significance to Arnhem Land people. Dilly bags are said to be totemic objects and associated with particular sites in the landscape.

Djulng

The bones are Djulng at Naborlkabotme. Djulng refers to the bones of dead Ancestral beings. There are some in a hole in the rock at this place.

Mun-dirra (fish fence)

Mun-dirra, in Burarra language, means “fish fence”. Mun-dirra were traditionally made by men using coastal sedge grass called gurdagarra and were designed to fence in schools of fish in ocean shallows or riverbeds. They were used in conjunction with conical traps, called an-gujechiya, which are woven with mirlarl, a hardy jungle vine, and burdaga, the sinewy inner bark from Kurrajong trees. 

Fish traps and fish fences have been used throughout west and central Arnhem Land by various language groups; in Kuninjku, people call them kunkarlewabe (fish fence) and mandjabu (fish trap).

Artist Doreen Jinggarrabarra explains, “In the old days, they didn’t have any casting nets, [so] they made a fish trap and a long fence net, [put] them side to side, and put the fish trap in the middle. Then the fish came and went in the fish trap.”

To make a fish trap (an-gujechiya), jungle vine (mirlarl) is soaked in water for one night to make it soft. Then, the structural form of the fishtrap would be worked on, with hibiscus (bardainy) rings fashioned inside to keep the fish trap’s shape. Kurrajong string (burdaga) would be made to attach the inner rings and to tie the conical end of the fish trap closed. This fish trap is used in both saltwater and freshwater.

 The fish fences (mun-dirra) would be set up across rivers and creeks, with the fish trap (an-gujechiya) placed in the middle of the two fences. Sticks, rocks, mud and grass would be used to hold the fences in position and funnel the fish into the trap. This ingenious system could catch fish like saltwater barramundi (rajarra), freshwater barramundi (janambal), small black freshwater catfish (buliya), bonefish (an-guwirrpiya), and sand bass (dalakan).

Doreen remembers seeing the traps in riverbeds around Maningrida when she was young: “The older ladies and the older men [would] usually go down, say about seven or eight o’clock, to go and check the trap. Maybe seven fish can go in, crabs and catfish,” she recalls.

Today, people generally use fishing lines and casting nets for fishing, but the woven traps and fences continue to be made as works of art. Women are now considered the knowledge holders, and are leaders in the development of sophisticated examples of woven design and material culture.

 *Maningrida Arts & Culture acknowledges the work of many academic and non-academic voices when writing on this topic. It is important to note Anna Freeland and Myles Russell-Cook, whose writing have informed this text.

Mat

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.

Commonly used fibres include the leaves of pandanus (Pandanus spiralis), and palms (Livistonus), mírlírl (burney or jungle vine, Malaisia scandens), and the inner bark of kurrajong and stringybark eucalyptus trees. Weaving is physically hard work, now done only by women. Artists commonly use a mix of naturally dyed and undyed fibre to create a striking variation of coloured bands. They colour the pandanus using natural dyes made from the roots, leaves or flowers of plants within the weaver’s clan estate. 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.

Artists weave many different kinds of mats. Conical mats were traditionally used to shield babies from mosquitoes. Long flat mats were used for blocking creeks so that fish would be diverted into fish traps. A small triangular mat made of pandanus fibre used to be worn by women during ceremonial gatherings, tied around their back and covering them at the front. Mats are also used for wrapping and rinsing food in water.

Artists usually use ngarakáya, pandanus spiralis, to weave fragrant, decorative round or oblong mats, as well as the less common triangular and conical shapes. The radial woven patterns of the finest round mats appear to vibrate with colour, sometimes regarded as an aesthetic manifestation of deep cultural meaning, as there is a significant spiritual dimension to pandanus mats.

Wak Wak

This painting depicts a sacred site at ‘Kurrurldul’, an outstation south of Maningrida.

The ‘rarrk’, or abstract crosshatching, on this work represents the design for the crow totem ancestor called ‘Djimarr’. Today this being exists in the form of a rock, which is permanently submerged at the bottom of Kurrurldul Creek. The ‘Djimarr’ rock in the stream at Kurrurldul is said to move around and call out in a soft hooting tone at night. Both the stone itself and the area around it are considered sacred.

The imagery represents the rock mentioned above at the bottom of Kurrurldul creek, which is the final transmutation of the dreaming ancestor ‘Djimarr’. Finally, the pattern used here is also the crow design used in the sacred ‘Mardayin’ ceremony, which is a large regional patri-moiety ceremony now rarely conducted in central and eastern Arnhem Land.