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Mandjabu

Kuninjku people traditionally make two sorts of conical fish traps. One is called mandjabu and is made from a strong, durable vine called milil, and a smaller one is called manylik mandjabu, and made from the grass manylik. The mandjabuconical fish trap is bigger and stronger and used in tidal reaches of creeks to catch large fish. The smaller, lighter manyliktrap is used in freshwater flowing creeks to catch smaller fish and freshwater prawns. In earlier times, only men were involved in the construction of the large fish traps, but children would often crawl inside and assist.

To make mandjabu, weavers firstly harvest milil (burney vine, Malaisia scandens) and put it in water overnight to make it soft. Then they start weaving it; they make rings for the inside to keep the fish trap’s shape. People also make string from the bark of burdaga (kurrajong) to attach the bardainy (hibiscus) rings and to tie the conical end of the fish trap. It’s hard work and it can take three or four weeks to make a fish trap. People also use fish-net fences called kunkarlewabe. They would put the kunkarlewabe  across rivers and creeks. In the middle they would place the mandjabu. They also used small things like sticks, rocks, mud and grass to block the fish from going through. This way we would catch fish such as saltwater barramundi rajarra, ngaldadmurrng (freshwater barramundi), small black freshwater catfish (buliya), bonefish (an-guwirrpiya), and sand bass (dalakan) in the mandjabu.

Categories: Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation

Name: Susan Marawarr

Language: Kuninjku

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Kuninjku artist Susan Marawarr was born in 1967 into a strong artistic family.  She is the daughter of Anchor Kulunba and Mary Wurrdjedje, and the sister of acclaimed bark painters James Iyuna and John Mawurndjul.    Marawarr is an accomplished printmaker, sculptor, weaver and bark painter.  Common subjects of her work include the powerful djang of wak wak, ngalyod and yawkyawk mythologies alongside the imagery of  popular everyday items like dilly bags, fish-traps,  mats and baskets.  She is known for her striking black and white palette.  This combined with her use of deep perspective often creates graphic optical effects, movement and energy in her idiosyncratic works.

In 2000, she collaborated with the Waanyi artist Judy Watson in the development of Watson’s public art commission of fish fences and dilly bags cast in bronze for Sydney International Airport.  Marawarr toured the United States in 2001 with the exhibition Bush Colour promoting the work of female printmakers as well as supervising bark painting workshops.

Over the last decade Marawarr’s artwork has been shown at numerous  galleries and cultural institutions including, Gabrielle Pizzi, Annandale Galleries, JGM (London) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.   Her work is held in many national collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Victoria and National Gallery of Australia. Text courtesy Maningrida Arts & Culture

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