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Published by CompNet Systems on

Four Wandjinas (cloud and rain spirits)

These land Wandjina are waking up and looking out. That’s how they get together: they have a meeting, get together, set the rules and law down. Wurdoo, it is bringing us out to carry it on. It’s their law we are doing that today with our children. In the story, they’re coming out, I always see them when I come out to this country, I feel it. They are very strong, they speak to me in their way. They are very spiritual Wandjinas. What I’m painting is what I’m feeling inside, it’s strong. They’re from Freshwater Cove, coming up from Cone Bay: my granny’s and grandfather’s country. I felt them when I went to Freshwater Cove. They are real to me. They learn all the law. Today we are teaching the children, they grow up and keep the same law. When you’re in town, out of respect you can’t go into another person’s home. In that same way we’ve got to respect the law.

Categories: MOWANJUM ART AND CULTURE CENTRE

Name: Mildred Minggi Mungulu

Language: Worrora, Wunambal

Community: Mowanjum

Biography:

Mildred was born at Derby in the old Native Hospital (Numbala Nunga) and spent her 22 years at Mowanjum (“old site”) on the Derby Highway. This was where Mildred watched her father Alan Mungulu (dec) make didgeridoos and boomerangs at home. “When I was there, I would see him do them.” It was being near the traditional crafting of these objects that created a connection to the traditional culture which assisted Mildred’s own craft as a painter. In 1979 the community was moved to a new site on the Gibb River Road and this is where Mildred now resides.

Mildred paints, “what represents us, from our mothers and fathers. We keep it going from generation to generation.” Her artwork demonstrates an array of traditional symbolic representations, including Wandjinas from the three tribes of the Mowanjum community: the Ngarinyin, Worrorra and Wunambal tribes. Coastal Wandjina are signified by the series of circular lines crossed with radial lines fanning from the Wandjina’s head. It has been said this represents a cyclone and lightning.

Traditionally a painter, etching is a new medium now being explored by Mildred.

 

 

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