“Wanalirri” (the Wandjina) are ancestral spirits who created country, people and animals in the North West Kimberley before turning themselves into rock paintings. They are sometimes called “lightning man” or “rain maker” and every year they replenish water holes, creeks and rivers during the wet season. The use of a red pigment, representing blood for the “Tili” (the heart) to show that the Wandjina are partly alive. (Bark has been etched and painted)
Name: Mercy Fredericks
Language: Ngarinyin
Community: Kalumburu
Biography:
"I was born here in the Kalumburu convent and my parents grew me up until my mother got sick and couldn’t look after me. I was on the other side of the river with the wild mob and then I moved to the convent and the nuns looked after me. I worked in the bakery making bread, cooking, sewing and I used to milk cows and nanny goats. I left the mission to work for the corporation in 1983. I started working for the aged care program and then for Community Justice and am on the council.”
Mercy began painting and engraving barks in 2009. She quickly gained recognition for her distinct Wandjina barks and fine textured ochre paintings. She sadly passed away in 2015 in Kalumburu with her family after a year of fighting cancer and leaves behind six children and three grandchildren.
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