Whale Ceremony, 1999

natural earth pigments on bark

$4,250

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Provenance: Elcho Island Arts, Galiwin'ku, NT, Cat No. 11/2209/BUK Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW, Cat No. 720
Exhibited: Bark Paintings 1930-2000, Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW, July 2011
Artwork story: The Warramiri are a saltwater people. Their homeland lies around Dholtji, near Cape Wilberforce, and their estates extend across open water to the Wessel Islands, so that the spiritual identity of the clan is bound above all to the sea. Among the ancestral beings of the deep, none stands higher for the Warramiri than the whale, Mirinyungu. The whale is the pre-eminent totem of the clan, an emblem of Warramiri identity. In the songlines of the Yirritja clans of this coast, the whale is honoured as kin, and the ancestral whale hunters known as Wurramala pursue Mirinyungu across the open sea, a cycle of songs and dances performed in ceremony to this day. It is this ceremonial life surrounding the whale, the songs, dances and sacred designs through which the Warramiri honour their great totem, that Liwukan records here on bark.

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c.1927 – 2007

natural earth pigments on bark

$4,250

Secure payment via Stripe. Prices in AUD.

Provenance: Elcho Island Arts, Galiwin'ku, NT, Cat No. 11/2209/BUK Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW, Cat No. 720
Exhibited: Bark Paintings 1930-2000, Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW, July 2011
Artwork story: The Warramiri are a saltwater people. Their homeland lies around Dholtji, near Cape Wilberforce, and their estates extend across open water to the Wessel Islands, so that the spiritual identity of the clan is bound above all to the sea. Among the ancestral beings of the deep, none stands higher for the Warramiri than the whale, Mirinyungu. The whale is the pre-eminent totem of the clan, an emblem of Warramiri identity. In the songlines of the Yirritja clans of this coast, the whale is honoured as kin, and the ancestral whale hunters known as Wurramala pursue Mirinyungu across the open sea, a cycle of songs and dances performed in ceremony to this day. It is this ceremonial life surrounding the whale, the songs, dances and sacred designs through which the Warramiri honour their great totem, that Liwukan records here on bark.