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Wandjina & Ungud (cloud and rain spirits & totem)

The Wandjina is the creator spirit that belongs to us (the Wororra, Ngarinyin and Wunumbul people). He is the one that created everything, he also gave us our culture, law and songs and even the dreaming of each child before they are born.

The Ungud Snake story is about two young boys who didn’t listen to their elders or believe in them. There is a big waterhole an in it lies a large Ungud Snake. The old people told the kids not to go near that waterhole, but these boys thought the elders were tricking them so they wanted to find out for themselves. So they went to the waterhole and built a hideout from branches with small holes so that they can see ( just in case the elders told the truth) they looked at the billabong and it was calm. They banged two sticks together to make clapping noise and then they saw all the lilypads starting to move apart on the water and large logs came up from out of the water, then came bubbles and after a huge head coming out of the water to have a look around for who had been making all the noise. He hadn’t seen annone so he went back down and the lilypads went flat and the water went calm. Those two boys ran back to the camp and told the elders that they were right , there was a snake and the elders told them that they should have listened in the first place. The Ungud Snake also was the chosen animal in helping with the creation of mother earth, creating rivers, gorges, stream’s and helped with the formation of the earth. Still today it lives in these dark deep water hole’s in our country which doesn’t want to be disturbed.

 

Categories: MOWANJUM ART AND CULTURE CENTRE

Name: Gabriella Barunga

Language: Ngarinyin

Community: Mowanjum

Biography:

Gabriella commenced her career as an artist in 1999 at Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre. Gabriella ‘likes to paint every day. Painting is my work and my way of telling a story. I paint the Wandjina from the Wanalirri mob.' Gabriella is a Ngarinyin woman. She grew up with her parents Biddy Ambi and Raphael Dolbyin at Bungarun, the leprosarium 10km's out of Derby. She was also cared for by Jack and Biddy Dale, 'they used to take us bush in the holidays. We went fishing and hunting kangaroos, snakes, turtles, and crocodiles.'

Gabriella has visited the caves where the Wandjinas were first painted. 'I thought- these are my ancestors. It’s amazing.' Gabriella’s first heard about traditional law and ancestral stories through her mother and uncles.

Gabriella confides that Gordon her partner 'helped me paint.' To the question why paint? Gabriella replies that she does 'to keep the culture going, keep it strong, keep it going for the children and grandchildren.'

The exploration of etching is a new medium for Gabriella as she has always been a painter.

 

 

 

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