Central Arnhem Land | National Museum of Australia

The artists of central Arnhem Land belong to the Yolŋu-speaking groups whose lands extend to the east coast of Arnhem Land.

Most people in this area moved from their traditional lands to the Christian mission on the island of Milingimbi after it was established in 1923, and to the postwar mainland settlements of Maningrida and Ramingining, before returning to their customary lands in the 1970s and 1980s.

In central Arnhem Land, the style of painting draws on elements of the figurative imagery of the west, and the detailed patterning and geometric compositions of the east.

Dawidi

Dawidi became the leader of ceremonies associated with the ancestral Wägilak Sisters on the death of his father, Yilkari Kitani (1891–1956). As Dawidi was still an inexperienced painter he was tutored by a senior artist, Dhawadanygulili (1900–1976). When Dawidi died, his brother Paddy Dhäthaŋu inherited his role.

The Wägilak story concerns the rules of marriage, the creation of the first monsoon and the concept of transformation. In the narrative, Wititj the Rainbow Serpent swallows the Wägilak Sisters but regurgitates them when he realises they belong to his moiety, the Dhuwa. The sequence of swallowing and regurgitation is a metaphor for transformation, as in initiation where boys enter the ceremony and emerge as men.

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a central snake encircling four figures with a large wedge-shaped object on the left. The painting also contains groups of figures, spears, rounded star shapes, oval shapes, sticks and footprints. The painting has a red background with white dots. - click to view larger image — *The Wägilak Story*

A bark painting worked in ochres. It depicts a central crosshatched triangular object with fan shapes above and surrounded by two coiled snakes. There is a row of fan shapes across the top alternating with red and black caterpillar shapes. The painting has a red background covered with white dots. - click to view larger image — *Wurrdjarra ga Marrma’ Wititj ga Marrma’ Djarrka (Sand Palm and Fronds with Two Snakes and Two Goannas)*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. The painting is divided into three panels with the upper panel depicting a boomerang with two figures lying below it and above, a vertical design of alternating black and crosshatched columns. The central panel has five vertical columns set against a background of horizontal bands. Three of the vertical designs have a chain motif while another depicts a human figure between two footprints. The lower panel depicts a feathered object between two poles. There are ten crosshatched panels to the left of this and twelve to the right. - click to view larger image — *Wolma, the First Thunder Cloud and the Rain Flooding the Country*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a central dilly bag fish trap with a number of fish inside it. On either side there is a goanna. On the left there is a snake and several fish and on the right a number of fish. - click to view larger image — *Dilly Bag Fish Trap*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts an elongated central form with a squared black head and pairs of plant shapes protruding from each side. The background consists of a grid-like pattern of crosshatching with horizontal stripes of burr forms and dotted ovals. - click to view larger image — *Wägilak Raŋga (Elder Sister)*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a large snake with the upper part of its body coiled around a small kangaroo on a black background. There is a smaller snake at the foot of the painting with its head pointing towards a black circular shape. On the left of the painting there is a large stick-like object. - click to view larger image — *Wititj ga Gandawul’ ga Wurrdjarra (Wititj with Rock Wallaby and Sand Palm in Seed)*

Mirarrmina Sacred Well of the Liyagalawumirr - click to view larger image — *Mirarrmina Sacred Well of the Liyagalawumirr*

Djan’kawu

The Djan’kawu – two sisters and their brother – are the major ancestors of the Dhuwa moiety. They created the first human beings and organised them into clans, allocated land and provided fresh water by plunging their digging sticks into the ground. They came to Arnhem Land from the east, across the sea.

Djunmal’s The Sea Voyage of the Djan’kawu Sisters depicts sea creatures that the ancestors saw as they paddled ashore. Tom Djawa’s Emu Dance shows two inland sites they created. The Union-Jack-like design represents the Djan’kawu, and the circles are freshwater wells. In Valerie Munininy 2’s painting a variation of the Djan’kawu design is shown among beds of oysters, at a site called Gärriyak.

The Djan’kawu arrived with the dawn and are linked to Banumbirr the Morning Star, which is symbolised by the yam plant. In Bartji (Jungle Yams), Jack Wunuwun, a master of the visual pun, has drawn the tubers of the plant in profile to suggest the human body with arms outstretched, as if performing in ceremony. He has transformed his subject from one realm to another, from the natural world to the ancestral. The vines of the yam plant symbolise the feathered string that ancestral beings attach to Banumbirr the Morning Star on its daily pre-dawn journey heralding a new day.

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It features two panels each with a circle in the centre containing eggs. The panels are further divided into four by bands of crosshatching and emu footprints. Each of these smaller panels depicts two emus eating fruit. The painting has a red background. - click to view larger image — *Emu Dance* by Tom Djäwa

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts six crabs with black shells and crosshatched claws in bands of colour. Between the rows of crabs thre are four large fish, two painted in yellow and two painted in black and six smaller black fish and one smaller yellow fish. The background in painted in red. - click to view larger image — *Crabs* by Tom Djäwa

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. The painting is divided into three panels by two crosshatched horizontal lines. The top panel depicts five large swordfish, two small swordfish, two diver ducks, two small fish, four rectangular objects and a circular jellyfish. The central panel depicts five large and five small swordfish, two diver ducks, three small fish and a small yellow circle. The lower panel depicts five large and one small swordfish, two diver ducks, three anemones, four fish and a sea snake.The painting has a background of dotted lines on a black surface. - click to view larger image — *The Sea Voyage of the Djan’kawu Sisters* by Djunmal

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a central yellow shape surrounded by a concentric circle of cross hatched design. The painting has double columns of crosshatched rectangular shapes with rounded ends separated by further columns of diagonal crosshatching. The painting has a dark red background. - click to view larger image — *The Djan’kawu Sisters at Gärriyak* by Valerie Munininy 2

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts eight lizards each with white, brown and yellow crosshatched patterns on their bodies. Two of the lizards have yellow features attached to either side of their heads. Three other lizards have their heads inside round containers. There are two other cylindrical objects in the painting. The painting has a striped background. - click to view larger image — *My Father’s Dreaming* by Jack Wunuwun

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. The upper half of the painting depicts yams with dragon fly, ants, bees and other insects on a red background. The lower half depicts jungle yams either painted in white crosshatching or in a brown spotted design on a black background. There is a fine white border around the painting. - click to view larger image — *Bartji (Jungle Yams)* by Jack Wunuwun

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. The painting is divided into two panels with the upper panel divided into five columns each containing a series of black, white, red or yellow butterflies. The lower panel depicts a large yam plant with black, red and yellow fruit and leaves. - click to view larger image — *Bartji ga Bonba (Yams and Butterflies)* by Binyinyuwuy

Malangi

David Malangi used to joke that he was the most popular painter in Australia. His image of the burial of Gurrmirriŋu the Ancestral Hunter was reproduced on the $1 note when decimal currency was introduced to Australia in 1966. As Malangi used to say, most Australians carried his painting in their wallets.

Malangi paintings show aspects of the story of Gurrmirriŋu, who died from the bite of a venomous snake. The Manharrŋu clan performed the first burial ceremony for him while a mortuary feast was prepared beneath a wurrumbuku (white berry tree). Gurrmirriŋu’s body was painted with the Manharrŋu clan design. Waterhole Life shows totemic animals surrounding the clan waterhole, which contains the souls of clan members. The central positioning of the waterhole reflects its significance to a person’s identity. When a clan member dies, a diver duck descends into the waterhole and plucks their soul from the circle of life.

Malangi had a unique way of drawing dangerous spirit figures. He often incorporated elements of X-ray drawing to show the skeleton and internal organs of his subjects. X-ray is normally associated with painting in western Arnhem Land. The Dead Gurrmirriŋu depicts the hunter’s body in a state of decay as birds eat at his flesh in a symbolic act of purification.

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It features a central tree with a thin black trunk supporting leafy branches. Underneath there are ten black figures with brown and white line designs, a snake and a number of oval shapes.The painting has a red background with a double white line around two sides and a horizontal striped band at the lower edge. - click to view larger image — *The Manharrŋu Mortuary Rites*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts from left to right a pike, a file snake, a diver duck and a water goanna. At the top of the painting there is a kangaroo. The painting has a black background. - click to view larger image — *Totemic Animals*

The Dead Gurrmirriŋu - click to view larger image — *The Dead Gurrmirriŋu*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a spirit painted in yellow with a red snake in the lower right hand corner and a black tree with white fruit or flowers in the upper right hand corner. The painting has a red background on the left and on the right a pattern of curved white lines on red. - click to view larger image — *Tree Spirit*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a file snake on the left with a water goanna superimposed on a kangaroo in the centre. There is a tree on the right. The painting has a red background. - click to view larger image — *Totems of the Manharrŋu, Mortuary Rites*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a central waterhole painted in black with coloured dots.This is surrounded by plants, roots, fish, a snake, a goanna, an emu, a wallaby and birds. These are painted in black, white, yellow and red.The long sides of the bark curve outwards. The painting has a red background. - click to view larger image — *Waterhole Life*

Milpurrurru

George Milpurrurru and his kinsman John Bulunbulun’s traditional lands lie in and around the Arafura Wetlands. It is a landscape teeming with wildlife and lush with vegetation. Ancestral flying foxes (fruit bats) are the custodians of Ŋlyindi, a major sacred site in the region. Milpurrurru has depicted the creatures in organised rows, and drawn them to resemble ceremonial objects such as the staffs in Raŋga (Ritual Objects) for the Yirritja Flying Fox Dance. The regularity of these compositions suggests the rhythms of ceremonial dance.

Shown in the centre of Ganalbiŋu Funerary Rites is a vertical log-coffin to house the bones of a deceased clan member. The bone burial ceremony marks the safe arrival of the soul to the ancestral realm and the end of the mourning period. All the elements in the painting – the coffin, the ritual objects and the magpie goose and waterlily totems – are decorated in the same clan pattern as the background, allowing them to take on an aura of invisibility to evoke the presence of sacred ancestral forces within the ceremony – and within the painting itself. Binyinyuwuy’s painting is another version of the same ceremony.

Milpurrurru’s Galawu (Stringybark House) depicts two types of bark hut: the curved shelters built on the ground in the dry season, and the platform shelter on stilts for the wet season. ‘Galawu’ also describes the large sheets of bark used for painting.

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It features two horizontal bands of crosshatching at the top of the painting below which is a panel of broad black and yellow vertical stripes. Underneath these are five black human figures and a small sunshaped motif.The lower section of the painting is made up of two yellow arches with two red arches above these and two central tree shapes. There are black human figures enclosed by the arches and beside the tree trunks. The painting has a crosshatched background. - click to view larger image — *Galawu (Stringybark House)* by George Milpurrurru

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts four rows of flying foxes painted in alternate colours of red, yellow, black and brown. The background is painted in a design of leaves and dotted white lines. The painting has a border of two white lines drawn around it. - click to view larger image — *Yirritja Ŋärra Flying Fox Dance* by George Milpurrurru

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts five elongated shapes in the upper half, three with black ends, one with red and another with yellow. These are set against two parallel yellow bands. The upper bands have a white circle placed between the second and third shapes from the right. The lower half has five smaller elongated shapes in the same colours with narrower yellow horizontal bands behind them. There is a white circle on each yellow band between the first and the second shape on the left hand side. There is also a small human figure placed between these white circles and another on the left side of the first shape. The background is in slightly diagonal stripes of white and red and white and yellow. The painting has a border of two white lines drawn around it. - click to view larger image — *Raŋga (Ritual Objects) for the Yirritja Flying Fox Dance* by George Milpurrurru

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts black, brown and yellow lozenge shapes superimposed on a white, yellow and brown crosshatched background. In the centre of the painting there is a vertical column of thin yellow lines with a solid black section at the top. On the left side of the column is a bird-like feature. - click to view larger image — *Ganalbiŋu Funerary Rites* by George Milpurrurru

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a mortuary pole surrounded by a frowning skull, two bones, a bird-like form, two bulb-shaped objects and a club-like shape. There are also five elongated forms, three painted in black and three in yellow and a paddle-like shape. The painting has a crosshatched background in lines of red, yellow and white. - click to view larger image — *Djalumbu (Hollow-Log Coffin) Mortuary Ceremony* by Binyinyuwuy

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and on one wooden restrainer. It depicts water birds, snakes and turtles separated by a horizontal crosshatched band in the upper centre. The painting has a background of white dots on either black or red. - click to view larger image — *Creatures of the Arafura Swamp* by John Bulunbulun

Portraits

Portraits of people, as the representation of their physical appearance and facial likenesses, are not part of the traditional Aboriginal artist’s repertoire. To Bininj and Yolŋu, a person’s identity – their kinship ties, totemic associations, clan group and connections to ancestors and country – is of much greater significance.

The two paintings here may be regarded as self-portraits of the artists Harry Makarrwala and Jimmy Wululu. Makarrwala belonged to the Wangurri clan. His clan design represents the patterns made by milka (mangrove worms) on a sacred log. The extensions at the top of the work mimic body painting arching over the shoulders.

Wululu belonged to the Daygurrgurr clan of the Gupapuyŋu group, and his primary totem was Niwuda (honey or sugarbag), associated with the Honey Ancestor Murayana at Djilwirri in central Arnhem Land. The diamond pattern shows the bees’ hive, with cells in various stages of development, within the trunk of the tree that appears in the centre of the painting.

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a central shape with a yellow base and pointed top. The central section of the shape has brown, white and black diamond designs with white and black dots. The background of the painting has the same diamond design with further diamonds painted in brown, light brown and white cross hatching. The painting has yellow ends and a yellow border down one side. - click to view larger image — *Sugarbag Dreaming* by Jimmy Wululu

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It has two thin rectangles protruding from the top of the main panel. Each depicts an insect-like figure, with the one on the left also depicting a turtle and a fish. The main panel is divided into four further sections by wide crosshatched bands. There are diamond-shaped patterns painted in different colours running vertically down each of these. - click to view larger image — *Milka (Mangrove Worms)* by Harry Makarrwala

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All these bark paintings are part of the National Museum of Australia’s collection. © the artist or the artist’s estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency 2013, unless otherwise specified. These images must not be reproduced in any form without permission.

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