Jeffrey paints his favourite birds that live in the country around Ernabella. These include the kuparu (magpie), partilpa (Port Lincoln ringed neck parrot), kayarkiyarpa (galah), tjintir-tjintirpa (willy wag-tail), piil-piilpa (yellow throated minor) and kuurkuurpa (owls).
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Jeffrey paints his favourite birds that live in the country around Ernabella. These include the kuparu (magpie), partilpa (Port Lincoln ringed neck parrot), kayarkiyarpa (galah), tjintir-tjintirpa (willy wag-tail), piil-piilpa (yellow throated minor) and kuurkuurpa (owls).
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Jeffrey paints his favourite birds that live in the country around Ernabella. These include the kuparu (magpie), partilpa (Port Lincoln ringed neck parrot), kayarkiyarpa (galah), tjintir-tjintirpa (willy wag-tail), piil-piilpa (yellow throated minor) and kuurkuurpa (owls).
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This design depicts certain Kunngol (cloud) that signal to people of central Arnhem Land that the end of the wet season is approaching. After months of daily monsoonal rain in Arnhem Land, these clouds are light and fluffy, not like the dark, heavy clouds of the monsoonal sky. At the time of the kunngol clouds, people know the country will soon dry up and the cold season (dry season) will arrive. When the kunngol clouds appear, all of the billabongs are already filled, the rivers are high and the country is brimming with life and fresh new growth after months of fresh water pouring from the sky.
“I want to tell you about my design, that Eiffel tower one.
This year it was my first time going to Paris. I didn’t know that place, nothing. We travelled around the world to get there, we flew underneath the world in an aeroplane.
Paris was a big, crowded city. They speak a different language there, just like here in Maningrida with all our different languages.
The Bábbarra artists and Ingrid, we were all walking around, like tourists. We went on the boat in the Paris river. There was a film crew taking videos of us. We saw so many beautiful buildings covered with black string (iron balconies) and big statues. We’d never seen things like that before.
I remember when we got off that boat and I looked up and saw that tower. When I first looked up at that tower, it made me happy- it’s so long up into the sky. We walked towards it. I was standing there watching that tower and thinking, ‘wow, first time for me seeing a tower like that’.
Then I was thinking, and I said to myself, when I go back to my own country, I’m going to paint that tower.
We came to Maningrida, I started to draw. I drew that tower from France, but also I drew maladj (stone country orphan spirit), women’s sacred woven mat, fish traps and rolk (insects). I also put round kunngol (clouds) in the design, those circles. That maladj spirit, it’s standing there next to the Eiffel tower, looking at the dancing lights at night. The tower is from Paris, but everything else in my design I took from my mother’s country and my father’s country.
Maybe one day I’ll travel back to France, and take my design with me to show them, all the French mob.” Janet Marawarr
Susan Marawarr is a Kuninjku artist from the Kurulk clan whose country lies around the outstation of Mumeka in central Arnhem Land. In this design, she has depicted karrbarda (long yam) on her traditional country, the kunwardde (stone country).
The large stones represent the kunwardde rocky outcrops, which are elevated above the flat floodplains. The vines creeping around the large rocks are from the karrbarda. Women dig up karrbarda with kungarrndutj (digging sticks) and they are then cooked in the ashes of the fire to be eaten.
These yams are purple on the saltwater side of country and on inland freshwater country they are white. Karrbarda are an important manme (bush food) that are collected during the wet and dry seasons.
These are the beautiful wildflowers that grow in my country. They grow amongst the spinifex and bloom at all different times of the year.
The early morning mist over the water is the smoke from the breakfast fires of the Marrga, the creation spirits. According to Yindjibarndi law, in the beginning the sky was very low. When the creation spirits, Marrga, arose from the ground they raised the sky and the world out of the ocean. This creation story is called Ngurru Nyujunnggama, ‘When the World was Soft’. The Marrga gave names and form to the country and then to all the birds and animals. Finally they created the Ngaardangarli, the Aboriginal people.
In Yinjibarndi Country the Rainbow Serpent protects its secret bird. If people from another country come and kill this secret bird it will get so angry and create four or five days of strong rain, thunder, lightning and strong wind.
