Yawkyawk: Young Woman Water Spirits of Western Arnhem Land
Yawkyawk is a word in the Kunwinjku language of western Arnhem Land meaning "young woman" and "young woman spirit being". Yawkyawk, also called ngalkunburriyaymi, are female water spirits living in freshwater streams and rock pools, particularly in the stone country. They are sometimes compared to European mermaids.
Jimmy Njiminjuma, Yawkyawk, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Fish-Women Spirits
Yawkyawk are usually described and painted with fish tails, and Kuninjku people sometimes call them ngalberddjenj, "the woman who has a tail like a fish". Their long hair is associated with the trailing green algae (man-bak) of freshwater streams. At times they leave the water to walk on dry land, particularly at night. They have husbands and children of their own kind, and Kuninjku say "clever men" (na-kordang) may take them as wives.
Yawkyawk and Country
The ancestor Yawkyawk travelled the country in human form and became ngalkunburriyaymi through a series of ancestral events. Kuninjku hold that ngalkunburriyaymi still live at sacred freshwater sites, which they often share with the rainbow serpent Ngalyod. Features of the land are linked to parts of the Yawkyawk's body: a bend in a creek may be her tail, a billabong her head. Different Kuninjku groups each have Yawkyawk stories tied to places in their clan estates, and shared stories link groups across clan and language boundaries.
Some yawkyawk have ritual importance. In some paintings the spirit holds ceremonial string, like the lengths of string women hold during certain public ceremonies today.
Sacred Sites
At least three major yawkyawk sites are known in the stone country south and south-west of Maningrida. Bolerrhlerr is on the Mann River near Yikarrakkal outstation, where rocky banks and clefts sit beneath stone overhangs in the water. A similar site further west, in the Kumadderr River district, is surrounded by small, very old rock art sites and has become known in English as "Dreaming Lady". The third is a major yawkyawk dreaming place so significant that its custodians, the Dangkorlo clan, set up an outstation nearby. Dangkorlo artists such as Owen Yalandja are known for their carved and painted yawkyawk figures.
References and Further Reading
- Taylor, Luke. Seeing the Inside: Bark Painting in Western Arnhem Land. Clarendon Press, 1996.
- Perkins, Hetti (ed.). Crossing Country: The Alchemy of Western Arnhem Land Art. Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2004.
- Maningrida Arts and Culture. Yawkyawk (Ngalkunburriyaymi).
- Art Gallery of New South Wales. Jimmy Njiminjuma, Yawkyawk, 2000.
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