Baru (Saltwater Crocodile) Bark paintings have a long cultural tradition, believed to extend back many thousands of years. In northern Australia, the walls of bark shelters in the Kimberley and Arnhem Land may well have been painted to convey and illustrate stories in the same way that rock shelters were. Bark painters in the Read more…
Jarlambu (Freshwater Catfish) The Lorrkon or bone pole coffin ceremony was the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log which was decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed Read more…
Baru (Crocodile) The Lorrkon or bone pole coffin ceremony was the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log which was decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed into Read more…
Bachaja (Jabiru) Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus Bachaja gu-jong waykin a-jarlaparda makukuya. The Jabiru makes its nest high in the tree The Jabriu is associated with the Yirrichinga
Kunkurra (The Spiralling Wind) ‘Kunkurra’, the spiralling wind is associated with several sites in the Kardbam clan estate. On one level, this painting can be interpreted as a depiction of the kinds of mini-cyclones common during the wet season in Arnhem Land, where the artist lives. In this painting, Kunkurra Read more…
Lorrkon (Hollow Log) The Lorrkon or bone pole coffin ceremony was the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log which was decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed Read more…
Wak Wak This painting depicts a sacred site at ‘Kurrurldul’, an outstation south of Maningrida. The ‘rarrk’, or abstract crosshatching, on this work represents the design for the crow totem ancestor called ‘Djimarr’. Today this being exists in the form of a rock, which is permanently submerged at the bottom Read more…
Yawkyawk Yawkyawk is a word in the Kunwinjku/Kunwok language of Western Arnhem Land meaning ‘young woman’ and ‘young woman spirit being’. The different groups of Kunwinjku people (one of the Eastern dialect groups call themselves Kuninjku) each have Yawkyawk mythologies, which relate to specific locations in clan estates. These mythologies Read more…
Mimih Spirit The mimih spirit exists in a realm that runs parallel to and mirrors many facets of human life, demonstrating the deep sense of time and place understood by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Such spirits feature importantly in relation to Aboriginal spirituality, cosmology, social and moral tales Read more…
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, Read more…