Artiste : Buwathay Munyarryun

Titre de l'œuvre : Darra (Ŋoŋu)

Pigments naturels sur écorce

Format : 77 x 23 cm

Provenance et certificat original : centre d'art aborigène de Yirrkala

Référence de la peinture : 3417-18

© Photo : Aboriginal signature with the courtesy of the artist & Buku-Larrngay Mulka.

Explication de l’œuvre :

This bark Painting by Buwathay Munyarryun (1962), identifies the reservoirs of the Ŋaymil/Datiwuy clan. Ŋalkan is an area on Ŋaymil land and sea between the

Gurrumuru and Cato Rivers that run into the Arnhem Bay. Within this area is another watercourse that leads up into a sacred area of a freshwater spring or Milŋurr with special qualities called Darrawuy. Here Djanda the sacred goanna swim in the

lagoon created by the spring, their actions as they swim causing patterns to be made on the surface that is covered by the totemic water weed Darra. The sacred clan design is a manifestation of these patterns created at Darrawuy lagoon.

Others inhabit these waters. Warrukay or Murrukula the Barracuda, the power totem for the Ŋaymil. It spends most of its time in the salt waters. At certain times Warrukay will make its way up to Darrawuy bringing the ‘contamination’ of saltwater (the

mother) with it. The mixing of this saltwater with the fresh has connotations of fertility. Darrawuy is a place of fertility. Souls of Ŋaymil are both delivered to and from this point between worlds real and spiritual. As the sacred songs used in mortuary

are cyclic, narrating the Ancestral Events of the original Creator Beings, so is the journey of the Yolŋu soul.

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