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The Rainbow Serpent is a powerful ancestral being for Aboriginal people throughout Australia. The characteristics of the Rainbow Serpent vary greatly from group to group and depending on the site. Often viewed as a female generative figure, the Rainbow Serpent can sometimes also be male. She has both powers of creation and destruction and is strongly associated with rain, monsoon seasons, and the colors seen in rainbows, which arc across the sky like a giant serpent. In Northern Australia, the Rainbow Serpent is said to be active during the wet season.
Known as Ngalyod in the Kuninjku language of western central Arnhem Land, the Rainbow Serpent is mostly associated with bodies of water such as billabongs, creeks, rivers, and waterfalls, where she resides. Therefore, she is responsible for the production of most water plants, such as water lilies, water vines, algae, and palms, which grow near water. The roar of waterfalls in the escarpment country is said to be her voice. Large holes in stony banks of rivers and cliff faces are said to be her tracks. She is held in awe because of her apparent ability to renew her life by shedding her skin and emerging anew.
Aboriginal creation stories about the Rainbow Serpent often describe her as a fearful creature that swallows humans, only to regurgitate them, transformed by her blood. The white ochre used by artists to create the brilliant white paint for bark paintings, body decoration, and rock art in the past, is said to be the faeces of the Rainbow Serpent.
Aboriginal people today respect and care for sacred sites where the Rainbow Serpent is said to reside. Certain activities are forbidden at these places for fear that the wrath of the great snake will cause sickness, accidents, and even tempests. However, there are many Rainbow Serpent sites today where people may enter to hunt, fish, or swim. Ngalyod has been the subject of art and ceremony for possibly thousands of years.
Milmligkan, where Ngalyod is depicted in this painting, is an example of a sacred site also used as a hunting camp. It is a sacred billabong and an important resting place for Ngalyod, not far from Kurrurldal. Ngalyod's association with water plants is represented in this painting by two water lily leaves in white ochre. Sometimes, Ngalyod is depicted as pregnant and referred to in Kunwinjku as Wadiyal.
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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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