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There are clan body designs belonging to the Ganalbingu and Djarrawitjibi clans used in the Marayarr Murrukundja ceremony. This ceremony is a public ceremony of diplomacy, a variety of the Marrajiri or Rom ceremony used by one language group as a presentation or gift to another group to maintain and strengthen economic, kinship, and social ties between the groups. In the Marayarr Murrukundja ceremony, the dancers present a large pole over three meters tall decorated with string, feathers, and cloth to their hosts. The pole represents the mast of a Macassan prau rolling in rough seas as the dancers tug a rope attached to the top of the pole while dancing and singing.
This particular design represents the artist's personal clan totem, Lunggurrma, the Northern wind which brought the Macassan trepangers to the shores of Arnhem Land in the artist's clan estate. Lunggurrma is also the name of the high cirrus clouds, which run in a straight line across the sky.
The memory of the annual visits of the Macassans to Northern Australia has been enshrined in Aboriginal ceremony, language, song, and oral history. Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land came to strongly associate the wet season with the arrival of the Macassans.
This particular design is only worn by men of the Ganalbingu or Djarrawitjibi clans for public diplomacy ceremonies and by boys of the above clans during their circumcision, which when painted on the body runs from the shoulder down to the middle of the thigh. Bulunbulun also says that this is how the cirrus clouds appear in the sky: "but like Lunggurrma, he goes up and down when you see a cloud, it goes a different way." Songs in the Marayarr ceremony have Lunggurrma as their theme.
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An art movement that is striking, political and enduring: this is what contemporary artists in Maningrida and the surrounding homelands have built, powered by their ancestral connections to country and djang.
Ways of learning and schools of art in Arnhem Land are based around a system of passing knowledge and information on to others. The art here has its genesis in body design, rock art and cultural practices, in concert with more than 50 years of collaborations, travel and political action to retain ownership of country. Values and law are expressed through language, imagery, manikay (song), bunggul (dance), doloppo bim (bark painting), sculptures, and kun-madj (weaving) – the arts.
The artists’ transformation of djang into contemporary artistic expression has intrigued people around the world: art curators and collectors, and stars including Yoko Ono, Jane Campion, David Attenborough and Elton John. Pablo Picasso said of Yirawala’s paintings, ‘This is what I’ve been trying to achieve all my life.’
Yirawala (c.1897–1976) was a legendary Kuninjku leader, artist, land-rights activist and teacher, and his artwork was the first of any Indigenous artist to be collected by the National Gallery of Australia as part of a policy to represent in depth the most significant figures in Australian art.
Maningrida Arts & Culture is based on Kunibídji country in Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory. The area where artists live encompasses 7,000 square kilometres of land and sea, and over 100 clan estates, where people speak more than 12 distinct languages. Aboriginal people in this region are still on country, surviving and resilient because their country is the centre of their epistemology, their belief system, culture – djang.
Artists’ works from the larger Maningrida region can be seen in collections and institutions around the world. We work with museums, contemporary galleries and high-end retailers both nationally and internationally on projects throughout the year.
Text courtesy: Maningrida Arts and Culture
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This bark painting has a metal support to retain its shape and provides a hanging hook for hanging from. No further framing is required or recommended.
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