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Bush Apples

This fabric was created using the linocut printing technique. The lino tile has been carved by the artist in Maningrida, and has been printed by hand using a variety of colours and layers. The linocut technique ensures each textile piece is a one-off, limited edition piece. Bábbarra Women’s Centre supports the economic independence of Indigenous women in the Arnhem Land community of Maningrida, Northern Territory, Australia. Designs created by the women at Bábbarra reflect strong cultural knowledge, which is passed down to younger generations through their textile design practice.

Yawkyawk on a rock

Yawkyawk is a word from the Aboriginal Kunwinjku language, meaning ‘young woman’ and ‘young woman spirit being’.

Sometimes compared to the European notion of mermaids, yawkyawks are usually depicted with the tails of fish. They have long hair, associated with trailing blooms of algae, typically found in Arnhem Land streams and rock pools.

Mardarda and Njarlarla (Bones and Fire Sticks)

Designed 2019

In Esther’s first screen design, she depicts the story of Mardarda (bones) and Njarlarla (fire sticks) carried in a dilly bag, reminiscent of traditional ways of the Ndjebenna people.

‘Back in the old days, our people would use a ‘bush lighter’ for lighting fires, which was two pieces of special wood which would make fire easily. The old people carried a dilly bag containing the fire stick all times, when they moved camps.

Old people would always carry dilly bags, sometimes with water, honey, food or bones of our deceased people.

When someone passed away their body would be put on a high platform built from eucalyptus and paperbark. They would use a firestick to light a fire under the platform, and people would sing and dance around that platform to send the deceased’s spirit back to his or her country.

The body would then be left here for many months. When ready, the clan would return to collect the bones to take them back to the deceased’s homeland for burial.

To travel to the homeland, people would paint the bones with brown ochre and place them in a dillybag. When they reached the deceased’s homeland, people would sing together, place the bones in the lorrkkon and to leave them rest forever.”

Dedded Wongkorr (ceremonial dilly bag with feathers)

This design depicts a ‘wongkorr’ sacred dilly bag woven with brightly coloured orange parrot feathers called ‘dedded’. It is depicted alongside a digging stick. Wongkorr are used in a number of public ceremonial contexts, and are sacred objects for the Bininj Kunwok speaking people of Western Arnhem Land.

‘This is a really special kind of dillybag for us, not like a normal dillybag.

This story was from a long time ago, when my great great grandfather was alive. He’s the one that was a medicine man for our people.
We are not supposed to see that sacred spirit dillybag that lives below the saltwater. If we ever see that site, it might drag us under and drown us. When the tide goes out he floats and when the tide comes in he goes under to hide.

This story is about fresh water and salt water mixing and our ancient law. There are strings of the Wongkorr hold it under the water. The Wongkorr is made with lorikeet parrot feathers and Kurrajong bark string.

I remember having a ceremony at that outstation Bolkjam when I was only 16 years old, near Ji Bal-bal homeland, and my father would tell me the story of the Wongkorr sacred site. My two sisters taught me to paint, and my Dad was a famous painter. Some balanda (non-Indigneous) know my father’s painting, it is about digging sticks, sharks and wongkorr.

This story links to mixed water, plant life and animals living at the artist’s country, and following the lessons and knowledge of the ancestors.’ Elizabeth Kala Kala

Dedded Wongkorr (ceremonial dilly bag with feathers)

This design depicts a ‘wongkorr’ sacred dilly bag woven with brightly coloured orange parrot feathers called ‘dedded’. It is depicted alongside a digging stick. Wongkorr are used in a number of public ceremonial contexts, and are sacred objects for the Bininj Kunwok speaking people of Western Arnhem Land.

‘This is a really special kind of dillybag for us, not like a normal dillybag.

This story was from a long time ago, when my great great grandfather was alive. He’s the one that was a medicine man for our people.
We are not supposed to see that sacred spirit dillybag that lives below the saltwater. If we ever see that site, it might drag us under and drown us. When the tide goes out he floats and when the tide comes in he goes under to hide.

This story is about fresh water and salt water mixing and our ancient law. There are strings of the Wongkorr hold it under the water. The Wongkorr is made with lorikeet parrot feathers and Kurrajong bark string.

I remember having a ceremony at that outstation Bolkjam when I was only 16 years old, near Ji Bal-bal homeland, and my father would tell me the story of the Wongkorr sacred site. My two sisters taught me to paint, and my Dad was a famous painter. Some balanda (non-Indigneous) know my father’s painting, it is about digging sticks, sharks and wongkorr.

This story links to mixed water, plant life and animals living at the artist’s country, and following the lessons and knowledge of the ancestors.’ Elizabeth Kala Kala

Dedded Wongkorr (ceremonial dilly bag with feathers)

This design depicts a ‘wongkorr’ sacred dilly bag woven with brightly coloured orange parrot feathers called ‘dedded’. It is depicted alongside a digging stick. Wongkorr are used in a number of public ceremonial contexts, and are sacred objects for the Bininj Kunwok speaking people of Western Arnhem Land.

‘This is a really special kind of dillybag for us, not like a normal dillybag.

This story was from a long time ago, when my great great grandfather was alive. He’s the one that was a medicine man for our people.
We are not supposed to see that sacred spirit dillybag that lives below the saltwater. If we ever see that site, it might drag us under and drown us. When the tide goes out he floats and when the tide comes in he goes under to hide.

This story is about fresh water and salt water mixing and our ancient law. There are strings of the Wongkorr hold it under the water. The Wongkorr is made with lorikeet parrot feathers and Kurrajong bark string.

I remember having a ceremony at that outstation Bolkjam when I was only 16 years old, near Ji Bal-bal homeland, and my father would tell me the story of the Wongkorr sacred site. My two sisters taught me to paint, and my Dad was a famous painter. Some balanda (non-Indigneous) know my father’s painting, it is about digging sticks, sharks and wongkorr.

This story links to mixed water, plant life and animals living at the artist’s country, and following the lessons and knowledge of the ancestors.’ Elizabeth Kala Kala

Lorrkon – Jennifer Wurrkidj

Jennifer Wurrkidj

TITLE                         Lorrkon (Hollow funeral log)

YEAR                          2010

MEDIUM                     Screen print

DETAILS                    2 screen design, 1000 x 420mm

Before, a long time ago, when old people would die they would put their bones inside the lorrkkon and leave it outside. It is part of ceremony. The old people remembering and thinking about that person who passed away, there is lots of talking about where that lorrkkon needs to go.

My father, James Iyuna, taught me how to paint, to paint that rarrk. That memory is from him, he taught my sister Deborah and me. This story is from him, this design. When he was painting and drawing we would watch and we would learn.

Jennifer Wurrkidj

Jennifer is a Kuninjku artist from the Kurulk clan whose country lies around the outstation of Mumeka in central Arnhem Land. She has depicted lorrkkon (hollow-log coffin), kun-karninj (digging stick) and mandjabu (fishtrap) in this design.

The Lorrkkon or hollow-log coffin ceremony is the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony might take place many years after the person has died, and involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log that is decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed into the ground where it slowly decays over many years.

The lorrkkon (hollow-log coffin) is made from the trunk of a termite-hollowed manbuluduk (stringybark tree, Eucalyptus tetradonta) and is decorated with totemic emblems. The western Arnhem Land version of the Lorrkkon ceremony involves the singing of sacred songs to the accompaniment of karlikarli, a pair of sacred boomerangs used as rhythm instruments. During the final evening of the ceremony, dancers decorate themselves with kapok down or, today, cotton wool, and conduct much of the final segments of the ceremony in the secrecy of a restricted men’s camp. The complete ceremony may stretch over a period of two weeks, but on the last night the bones of the deceased, which have been kept in a bark container, or today wrapped in cloth and kept in a suitcase, are taken out, and are painted with red ochre and placed inside the hollow-log coffin.

At first light on the final morning of the Lorrkkon ceremony, the men appear, coming out of their secret bush camp carrying the lorrkkon towards the women’s camp. The two groups call to each other using distinct ceremonial calls. The women have prepared a hole for the lorrkkon to be placed into, and when it is stood upright, women in particular kinship relationships to the deceased dance around the lorrkkon in a jumping/shuffling motion. It is then often covered with a tarpaulin and left to slowly decay.

Yawkyawk (Young Woman Spirit)

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].

The Mimih one is a long way from the stone country. He is from my uncles country Barrihdjowkkeng   My uncle is the famous artist Crusoe Kurddal and he carves and paints Mimih.  

Sometimes yawkyawk sit inside the rock. Sometimes they go out to find the manme (food) and the mankung (sugarbag). Also they can sing inside the rock cave. Sometimes yawkyawk will see the big rain. When the big rain comes they start looking and when the rain comes they go inside and hide themselves.

Some yawkyawk stay on the dry land in a special place inland from Barrihdjowkkeng.

Some of the stones get stuck on the breasts of the yawkyawk.

In my fabric they are all coming together with the grass trees and leaves and the blowing wind. Some of the leaves will fall onto the water. All the round shapes are kunred (rocky country) with dry grass.