Maningrida Arts & Culture

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Gomarla (Egret bird)

The artist has carved the ‘Gomarla’, which in the Burarra word for Egret. This bird is native to the country of Yilan, which is the coastal region North West of Maningrida Community. 

People use feathers from gomarla to make ceremonial regalia for Yirrichinga. Many Yirrichinga groups own manikay ‘song’ for gomarla.

Gomarla mun-baparrurr Gopungorra. Jin-gubatbatcha jin-banga jiny-yorkiya. Gomarla waykin makukuya mu-guyinda.

The egret belongs to the Gopungorra clan. It always eats grasshoppers. The egret is high in a nest (builds its nest in the tree).

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Gomarla (Egret bird)

The artist has carved the ‘Gomarla’, which in the Burarra word for Egret. This bird is native to the country of Yilan, which is the coastal region North West of Maningrida Community. 

People use feathers from gomarla to make ceremonial regalia for Yirrichinga. Many Yirrichinga groups own manikay ‘song’ for gomarla.

Gomarla mun-baparrurr Gopungorra. Jin-gubatbatcha jin-banga jiny-yorkiya. Gomarla waykin makukuya mu-guyinda.

The egret belongs to the Gopungorra clan. It always eats grasshoppers. The egret is high in a nest (builds its nest in the tree).

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Coil Basket

Coil basketry is a well-established fibre art form in the Maningrida region, especially for women from the Kuninjku, Rembarrnga, Ndjebbana and Nakkara language groups. 

Artists make coiled baskets of many shapes and sizes, ranging from small round baskets to large oval baby baskets, and made mostly from pandanus fibre that is dyed with natural pigments. Bundles of fibre are formed into coils which are covered and stitched together with strands of fibre threaded onto a needle. Artists combine colours and patterns to obtain intricate new graphic patterns.

These techniques are believed to have been introduced to Arnhem Land by Greta Matthews, a missionary on Goulburn Island in the 1920s. She had probably learnt coil basketry from Aboriginal people in the south-east of Australia, possibly the Murray River people such as the Yorta Yorta or the coastal Ngarrindjeri. 

The coiling technique spread quickly from Goulburn Island to people on mainland Arnhem Land. 

 

 

Dimensions: 13 x 31 x 31cm

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Nawarlah – Brown River Stingray

We hunt the Nawarlah (Brown River Stingray) during the wet season.  There is a plant with a yellow flower that tells us that it is the right time.  We know it will be fat. 

It is well known that Aboriginal art often depicts images of sacred totems or dreamings of Aboriginal culture. However, the world of the non-sacred also provides a rich source of subject matter for Aboriginal art. Much of the rock art of western Arnhem Land for example features secular topics such as common food animals and plants, depicted because of their economic importance but also merely because of their existence in the environment.

Dimensions: 194 x 94cm (124 x 94cm woven area)

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Burlupurr – dillybag

Burlupurr, or dilly bag, is usually a large woven collecting basket. These large bags are often made from the vine ‘Malasia scandens’, a strong pliable plant which grows along the floor and into the canopy of monsoon vine thickets. The bags are used to collect any kind of large numbers of heavy foods such as fish caught in conical fish traps or large collections of yams.

They can also be made from Pandanus spiralis, a plant which grows in many areas of Arnhem Land. These dilly bags are a tightly woven collecting basket, very finely made. These dilly bags are often used to collect sugarbag, the native honey. 

Common colours used to dye pandanus used for weaving burlupurr include:

– barra gu-jirra: the soft, white and fleshy end of the pandanus leaf imparts green to the fibre.

–  mun-gumurduk/ gala (Pogonolobus reticulatus): a bright yellow root that is crushed and put in a billycan with the fibre and boiled. It creates yellow when boiled once and deep orange hues when boiled multiple times.

– ngalpur (Haemodorum brevicaule): a bright red root which yields a range of purply red to brown colours.

– Baluk: ashes of certain plants are added to the boiling billycan with the fibre and dye plants to alter the colour that is imparted to the fibre. The fruiting body of gulpiny (Banksia denanta) is burnt and the ashes added to other day plants to make the colour pink. 

As well as being of practical use, dilly bags are also of religious significance to Arnhem Land people. Dilly bags are said to be totemic objects and associated with particular sites in the landscape.

Dimensions: 17 x 14 x 14cm

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Burlupurr – dillybag

Burlupurr, or dilly bag, is usually a large woven collecting basket. These large bags are often made from the vine ‘Malasia scandens’, a strong pliable plant which grows along the floor and into the canopy of monsoon vine thickets. The bags are used to collect any kind of large numbers of heavy foods such as fish caught in conical fish traps or large collections of yams.

They can also be made from Pandanus spiralis, a plant which grows in many areas of Arnhem Land. These dilly bags are a tightly woven collecting basket, very finely made. These dilly bags are often used to collect sugarbag, the native honey. 

Common colours used to dye pandanus used for weaving burlupurr include:

– barra gu-jirra: the soft, white and fleshy end of the pandanus leaf imparts green to the fibre.

–  mun-gumurduk/ gala (Pogonolobus reticulatus): a bright yellow root that is crushed and put in a billycan with the fibre and boiled. It creates yellow when boiled once and deep orange hues when boiled multiple times.

– ngalpur (Haemodorum brevicaule): a bright red root which yields a range of purply red to brown colours.

– Baluk: ashes of certain plants are added to the boiling billycan with the fibre and dye plants to alter the colour that is imparted to the fibre. The fruiting body of gulpiny (Banksia denanta) is burnt and the ashes added to other day plants to make the colour pink. 

As well as being of practical use, dilly bags are also of religious significance to Arnhem Land people. Dilly bags are said to be totemic objects and associated with particular sites in the landscape.

Dimensions: 17 x 15 x 15cm

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Burlupurr – dillybag

Burlupurr, or dilly bag, is usually a large woven collecting basket. These large bags are often made from the vine ‘Malasia scandens’, a strong pliable plant which grows along the floor and into the canopy of monsoon vine thickets. The bags are used to collect any kind of large numbers of heavy foods such as fish caught in conical fish traps or large collections of yams.

They can also be made from Pandanus spiralis, a plant which grows in many areas of Arnhem Land. These dilly bags are a tightly woven collecting basket, very finely made. These dilly bags are often used to collect sugarbag, the native honey. 

Common colours used to dye pandanus used for weaving burlupurr include:

– barra gu-jirra: the soft, white and fleshy end of the pandanus leaf imparts green to the fibre.

–  mun-gumurduk/ gala (Pogonolobus reticulatus): a bright yellow root that is crushed and put in a billycan with the fibre and boiled. It creates yellow when boiled once and deep orange hues when boiled multiple times.

– ngalpur (Haemodorum brevicaule): a bright red root which yields a range of purply red to brown colours.

– Baluk: ashes of certain plants are added to the boiling billycan with the fibre and dye plants to alter the colour that is imparted to the fibre. The fruiting body of gulpiny (Banksia denanta) is burnt and the ashes added to other day plants to make the colour pink. 

As well as being of practical use, dilly bags are also of religious significance to Arnhem Land people. Dilly bags are said to be totemic objects and associated with particular sites in the landscape.

Dimensions: 21 x 11 x 11cm

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Burlupurr – dillybag

Burlupurr, or dilly bag, is usually a large woven collecting basket. These large bags are often made from the vine ‘Malasia scandens’, a strong pliable plant which grows along the floor and into the canopy of monsoon vine thickets. The bags are used to collect any kind of large numbers of heavy foods such as fish caught in conical fish traps or large collections of yams.

They can also be made from Pandanus spiralis, a plant which grows in many areas of Arnhem Land. These dilly bags are a tightly woven collecting basket, very finely made. These dilly bags are often used to collect sugarbag, the native honey. 

Common colours used to dye pandanus used for weaving burlupurr include:

– barra gu-jirra: the soft, white and fleshy end of the pandanus leaf imparts green to the fibre.

–  mun-gumurduk/ gala (Pogonolobus reticulatus): a bright yellow root that is crushed and put in a billycan with the fibre and boiled. It creates yellow when boiled once and deep orange hues when boiled multiple times.

– ngalpur (Haemodorum brevicaule): a bright red root which yields a range of purply red to brown colours.

– Baluk: ashes of certain plants are added to the boiling billycan with the fibre and dye plants to alter the colour that is imparted to the fibre. The fruiting body of gulpiny (Banksia denanta) is burnt and the ashes added to other day plants to make the colour pink. 

As well as being of practical use, dilly bags are also of religious significance to Arnhem Land people. Dilly bags are said to be totemic objects and associated with particular sites in the landscape.

Dimensions: 26 x 15 x 15cm

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Burlupurr – dillybag

Burlupurr, or dilly bag, is usually a large woven collecting basket. These large bags are often made from the vine ‘Malasia scandens’, a strong pliable plant which grows along the floor and into the canopy of monsoon vine thickets. The bags are used to collect any kind of large numbers of heavy foods such as fish caught in conical fish traps or large collections of yams.

They can also be made from Pandanus spiralis, a plant which grows in many areas of Arnhem Land. These dilly bags are a tightly woven collecting basket, very finely made. These dilly bags are often used to collect sugarbag, the native honey. 

Common colours used to dye pandanus used for weaving burlupurr include:

– barra gu-jirra: the soft, white and fleshy end of the pandanus leaf imparts green to the fibre.

–  mun-gumurduk/ gala (Pogonolobus reticulatus): a bright yellow root that is crushed and put in a billycan with the fibre and boiled. It creates yellow when boiled once and deep orange hues when boiled multiple times.

– ngalpur (Haemodorum brevicaule): a bright red root which yields a range of purply red to brown colours.

– Baluk: ashes of certain plants are added to the boiling billycan with the fibre and dye plants to alter the colour that is imparted to the fibre. The fruiting body of gulpiny (Banksia denanta) is burnt and the ashes added to other day plants to make the colour pink. 

As well as being of practical use, dilly bags are also of religious significance to Arnhem Land people. Dilly bags are said to be totemic objects and associated with particular sites in the landscape.

Dimensions: 27 x 16 x 16cm

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Mun-dirra (fish fence)

Mun-dirra, in Burarra language, means “fish fence”. Mun-dirra were traditionally made by men using coastal sedge grass called gurdagarra and were designed to fence in schools of fish in ocean shallows or riverbeds. They were used in conjunction with conical traps, called an-gujechiya, which are woven with mirlarl, a hardy jungle vine, and burdaga, the sinewy inner bark from Kurrajong trees. 

Fish traps and fish fences have been used throughout west and central Arnhem Land by various language groups; in Kuninjku, people call them kunkarlewabe (fish fence) and mandjabu (fish trap).

Artist Doreen Jinggarrabarra explains, “In the old days, they didn’t have any casting nets, [so] they made a fish trap and a long fence net, [put] them side to side, and put the fish trap in the middle. Then the fish came and went in the fish trap.”

To make a fish trap (an-gujechiya), jungle vine (mirlarl) is soaked in water for one night to make it soft. Then, the structural form of the fishtrap would be worked on, with hibiscus (bardainy) rings fashioned inside to keep the fish trap’s shape. Kurrajong string (burdaga) would be made to attach the inner rings and to tie the conical end of the fish trap closed. This fish trap is used in both saltwater and freshwater.

 The fish fences (mun-dirra) would be set up across rivers and creeks, with the fish trap (an-gujechiya) placed in the middle of the two fences. Sticks, rocks, mud and grass would be used to hold the fences in position and funnel the fish into the trap. This ingenious system could catch fish like saltwater barramundi (rajarra), freshwater barramundi (janambal), small black freshwater catfish (buliya), bonefish (an-guwirrpiya), and sand bass (dalakan).

Doreen remembers seeing the traps in riverbeds around Maningrida when she was young: “The older ladies and the older men [would] usually go down, say about seven or eight o’clock, to go and check the trap. Maybe seven fish can go in, crabs and catfish,” she recalls.

Today, people generally use fishing lines and casting nets for fishing, but the woven traps and fences continue to be made as works of art. Women are now considered the knowledge holders, and are leaders in the development of sophisticated examples of woven design and material culture.

 *Maningrida Arts & Culture acknowledges the work of many academic and non-academic voices when writing on this topic. It is important to note Anna Freeland and Myles Russell-Cook, whose writing have informed this text.