June 2025

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Kakan (Black Palm) Dillybag.

Our ancestors used Kakan (Black Palm) dilly bags to carry food when out hunting and gathering or soak bitter yams in creeks before cooking them. They were also used to hold personal items.

When I was a young girl my grandmother would teach me how to make Black Palm dillybags. We used to set up camp with other Kuku Yalanji women at a creek near Helenvale. It is very hard work. The men would help us cutting down the palm trees and separate the crownshaft from the trunk and the leaves. Then the women used to peel away the outer leaves until they felt strong threads they could pull out. They cleaned these threads from pulp with a mussel shell. When we moved away from Helenvale I forgot how to make them. Luckily years later I asked a relative of mine, Wilma Walker, who is great weaver, if she could refresh my memories. From then on I kept making dillybags as long as my health allowed it. I really enjoyed making them.

By CompNet Systems, ago

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Minyma Kutjara

There is a story of deep significance to women which contains metaphorical references to female cycles. It tells of two women travelling north. The pair meet with a group of women, including Kutungu, who are caring for a man who then passes away. They then travel to the area known as Mantaruta, near Uluru, where they chase a curious wanampi (serpent) deep into the ground while trying to catch him. They burn their body hair to attract him and hit him on the head and run away. From afar they throw a manguri/traditional head-ring for carrying which also hits him. He then comes and hits the women who travel on bleeding and hurt.

By CompNet Systems, ago

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Minyma Maalila-ku Ngura – Maalila’s Country

This is a story of a woman named Maalila travelling south to west. She stopped near Kanpi area to look for a place to stay, her ngura (country). She was digging a hole to hide, she was scared of the wati (men). Maalila was with her daughter, they all lived in the underground cave hiding. They went out to gather bush food to take back to the cave. They dig for rabbits, kuka (meat) and they take kuka and mai (food) and they save for later in the cave. They have something to eat.

Story told by Teresa Baker

By CompNet Systems, ago

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Ngayuku Ngura – My Country

Artists use this title when they are depicting their Country. It might be a representation of a particular place or of different aspects of that area. The artist uses a combination of colour and design to indicate variations in the landscape. Inspiration is drawn from all elements of Country and might include bush tucker, water holes, meeting places, rock formation, birds or animals.

By CompNet Systems, ago

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Wati Wanampi Tjuta / Snake Men – Imuna Kenta’s Story

 

Imuna paints the Country that stretches from Mutitjulu to Kunytjanu, close to Pipalyatjara in the far west of the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. The ancestral figure known as Wati Wanampi (male water snake) lived at a waterhole site called Malara. The Wanampi gathered a group of men together to go out hunting for kuka (meat).

While they were out looking for meat, another group of male water snakes known as the Wal Mala (an army of soldier snakes who came from Mutitjulu) recruited them into their army. The group joined forces and travelled to a site known as Kuntyjanu, where they engaged in a battle with Wati Tjakura (an edible skink lizard). They speared Wati Tjakura and killed him. The group then returned to Malara, where they rest today at the waterhole.

By CompNet Systems, ago

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Tjala / Honey Ants

Tjala or honey ants live in nests about a metre underground beneath mulga trees, and they are a highly favoured food source. The tjala tunnels that lead down to the ants’ nests are called nyinantu, and the larvae are called ipilyka-ipilyka. After the rain when the ground is soft the women go digging for tjala by looking for the drill holes under the trees. They then use shovels and crowbars to dig down following the tunnels to find the tjala inside. Anangu suck the delicious rich honey-like liquid from the distended abdomen of the tjala. The story of the tjala is told across the Northern Territory into South Australia and is an important link between Anangu mythology and inter-dependence on the environment.

By CompNet Systems, ago

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Dhawurr or Batjbarra (Fish Trap)

Dhawurr, or Batjbarra, is a traditional fishing method used by Indigenous people in the Arafura Swamp and surrounding wetlands of Arnhem Land. Yolŋu now prefer the modern fishing methods of reels and bait, however, weavers continue to make Batjbarra for cultural conservation and to be sold as decorative pieces.

When used for practical purposes, the Batjbarra was placed into the river with the opening facing oncoming fish. The woven tunnel trapped the fish with the weave tight enough to prevent escape but loose enough to allow water to freely flow through. The traps tapered so that when they were submerged, the water pressure wedged them into place.

The primary material used in this piece is the young, green leaves of the Pandanus spiralis tree, that were harvested using a long wooden hook. The leaves are stripped of their prickles, with the smaller fibres being dried to produce a strong, resilient material. These fibres are then twisted, coiled, or combined using various techniques to create the fish trap.

Bula’bula weavers exclusively use natural dyes, derived from locally sourced roots, leaves and grasses. These pigments are extracted and infused into pandanus fibres by boiling over an open fire, producing the rich, vibrant colours characteristic of contemporary Yolŋu weavings.

By CompNet Systems, ago

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Wet Season

“When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see a colourful painting and wonder what it is, but that’s how Martu tell story long ago. It’s not just a lovely painting, it’s a story and a songline and a history and everything that goes with it.” 

– Ngalangka Nola Taylor and Joshua Booth

This work portrays an area of Country that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the image may be read as an aerial representation of a particular location known to the artist- either land that they or their family travelled, from the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era to now. During the pujiman period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, 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), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation), ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded with the use of a use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert. 

An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire) are also often evident. 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 evident 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. Very often, however, information relating to Jukurrpa is censored by omission, or alternatively painted over with dotted patterns.

By CompNet Systems, ago