April 2026

---

---

Borndok (Spear Thrower)

The Borndok (Spear Thrower) is used to help propel a spear. These items are used for hunting and highly decorative pieces are used in ceremony. Also known as woomera; a flat type of spear thrower. The borndok is held in one hand, with the spear placed in the hook at the top of the borndok.

Like spears and boomerangs, borndok’s are more commonly used by men. In the West Arnhem region are exclusive to ‘men’s business’, meaning women are forbidden to use. If touched or held by women, women will be cursed to have bad luck or in some cases infertility.

---

---

Borndok (Spear Thrower)

The Borndok (Spear Thrower) is used to help propel a spear. These items are used for hunting and highly decorative pieces are used in ceremony. Also known as woomera; a flat type of spear thrower. The borndok is held in one hand, with the spear placed in the hook at the top of the borndok.

Like spears and boomerangs, borndok’s are more commonly used by men. In the West Arnhem region are exclusive to ‘men’s business’, meaning women are forbidden to use. If touched or held by women, women will be cursed to have bad luck or in some cases infertility.

---

---

Borndok (Spear Thrower)

The Borndok (Spear Thrower) is used to help propel a spear. These items are used for hunting and highly decorative pieces are used in ceremony. Also known as woomera; a flat type of spear thrower. The borndok is held in one hand, with the spear placed in the hook at the top of the borndok.

Like spears and boomerangs, borndok’s are more commonly used by men. In the West Arnhem region are exclusive to ‘men’s business’, meaning women are forbidden to use. If touched or held by women, women will be cursed to have bad luck or in some cases infertility.

---

---

Borndok (Spear Thrower)

The Borndok (Spear Thrower) is used to help propel a spear. These items are used for hunting and highly decorative pieces are used in ceremony. Also known as woomera; a flat type of spear thrower. The borndok is held in one hand, with the spear placed in the hook at the top of the borndok.

Like spears and boomerangs, borndok’s are more commonly used by men. In the West Arnhem region are exclusive to ‘men’s business’, meaning women are forbidden to use. If touched or held by women, women will be cursed to have bad luck or in some cases infertility.

---

---

Garnawarra (frog) and Jima Jima (Waterlily)

Jimi jima is similar to what is commonly known as a waterlily (monochoria australasica). The plant is mainly associated with a waterhole named Yalija, but also other sacred waterholes in the Wurdeja area. This painting of jima jima depicts the lily as it exists naturally in wet water areas at Wurdeja. They have an edible root, which is brownish and bitter when raw, but once roasted on coals it is deliciously sweet. They are only found in sacred waterholes in the Wurdeja area, including Yalija, and humans and spirits live off them. They are a bright blue flowering plant.

Fiona Steele is the daughter of the late Tommy Gondorra Steele, the last male member of the Garnawula Niya clan who lived at Wurdeja outstation, about four kilometres east of the Blyth River, and who was the traditional owner of that area. Wurdeja is surrounded by a series of sacred waterholes and it is these waterholes, which provide the subject matter for Steele’s art.

---

---

Kunkurra (The Spiralling Wind)

‘Kunkurra’, the spiralling wind is associated with several sites in the Kardbam clan estate. On one level, this painting can be interpreted as a depiction of the kinds of mini-cyclones common during the wet season in Arnhem Land, where the artist lives. In this painting, Kunkurra also relates specifically to a site called Bilwoyinj, near Mankorlod.

At this site, two of the most important Kuninjku creation beings, a father and son known as na-korrkko, are believed to have hunted and eaten a goanna. They left some of the goanna fat behind at the site, which turned into the rock that still stands there today. The word Bilwoyinj, which is the name of this site, also refers to the fat of the goanna. Bilwoyinj site is also a ceremonial ground for a ceremony called Yabbaduruwa, a major ceremony owned by the Yirridja patrimoiety. The Yabbaduruwa ceremony is primarily concerned with initiation, land ownership and promoting the cyclical regeneration of the human and natural worlds.

---

---

Djerrh (String Bag)

Djerrh is the Bininj Kunwok language word for string bag. These can vary greatly, with artists commonly using a mix of naturally dyed and un-dyed fibre to create a striking variation of coloured bands. Some artists also incorporate different types of looping to produce different patterns and textured finishes. The bag is woven by hand, with the beginnings of the bag stretched around the woman’s knees as she sits with her legs stretched out in front of her, to hold it firm as she weaves the bag into being. Djerrh can also be used to mean “womb”. 

Each type of fibre bag, mat, basket and dilly bag has its own name in the various languages spoken in the Maningrida region.

---

---

Coil Basket

Coil basketry is a well-established fibre art form in the Maningrida region, especially for women from the Kuninjku, Rembarrnga, Ndjebbana and Nakkara language groups. 

Artists make coiled baskets of many shapes and sizes, ranging from small round baskets to large oval baby baskets, and made mostly from pandanus fibre that is dyed with natural pigments. Bundles of fibre are formed into coils which are covered and stitched together with strands of fibre threaded onto a needle. Artists combine colours and patterns to obtain intricate new graphic patterns.

These techniques are believed to have been introduced to Arnhem Land by Greta Matthews, a missionary on Goulburn Island in the 1920s. She had probably learnt coil basketry from Aboriginal people in the south-east of Australia, possibly the Murray River people such as the Yorta Yorta or the coastal Ngarrindjeri. 

The coiling technique spread quickly from Goulburn Island to people on mainland Arnhem Land. 

 

 

---

---

Coil Basket

Coil basketry is a well-established fibre art form in the Maningrida region, especially for women from the Kuninjku, Rembarrnga, Ndjebbana and Nakkara language groups. 

Artists make coiled baskets of many shapes and sizes, ranging from small round baskets to large oval baby baskets, and made mostly from pandanus fibre that is dyed with natural pigments. Bundles of fibre are formed into coils which are covered and stitched together with strands of fibre threaded onto a needle. Artists combine colours and patterns to obtain intricate new graphic patterns.

These techniques are believed to have been introduced to Arnhem Land by Greta Matthews, a missionary on Goulburn Island in the 1920s. She had probably learnt coil basketry from Aboriginal people in the south-east of Australia, possibly the Murray River people such as the Yorta Yorta or the coastal Ngarrindjeri. 

The coiling technique spread quickly from Goulburn Island to people on mainland Arnhem Land. 

 

 

---

---

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 depicted ‘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.