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Yawkyawk and Ngalng – Major Work

‘Yawkyawk swim underneath the rock. They always stay there. When the sun comes out they come out from underneath the river, make themselves warm. They sit and they look around. When they sit, they cry to themselves. Ngaldjorlhbo (mother of everything) she created them – yawkyawk and the other one [Ngalng].

Ngalng (fresh water yabby)

‘This is a story from Mankorlod. This is a djang story. This is the creation story about the fresh water yabby. Starting with the stone, that’s the raw one and the cooked one. The stone rock suddenly turned to ngalng, in a flash. Ngalng started growing and turned into a body. It’s a magic one and it can change from rock to ngalng to human and back to ngalng. Now it’s a ngalng. 

The country is near Mankorlod and Korlobididah. The ngalng is stuck there forever on the rock at Korlobididah.’ 

In conversation with Janet Marawarr 2022

 

This textile was created in 2021 by Janet and her granddaughter Lamischa. This work was created over many days on a long table using the lino printing technique.  

Categories: Babbarra Women’s Centre

Name: Janet Marawarr

Language: Kune, Kuninjku

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Janet is a senior Kuninjku artist at Babbarra Designs working with lino tiles and screen print designs. Janet is renown for her use of cut out lino tiles which she prints in intuitive repeat patterns on a range of textile surfaces. Janet regards textile design as an opportunity to work with colour and new methods to express her djang (ancestral creation stories).

‘I like lino, print my design and doing different way to print my lino, different colours and different way. I print lino Yawkyawk (spirit woman) and Ngaldjorlhbo (mother of Everything). This was an old lady and she create that language and the world before. I also print also Rolk (maggot), my mother design cause I’m the Djunkay (land manager) for her.’  Janet Marawarr 2020

As well as her artistic work with Bábbarra Women’s Centre, she is an established bark painter with Maningrida Arts & Crafts and she works for the Maningrida Night Patrol, a community safety service.

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