Item DT 197 jin-gubardabiya | Garment. Burarra. Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. c.1936

Summary

This skirt was worn during the final stages of Ngulmark, a high order men's ceremony that women join in with at specific points. The ceremony was most likely the one in 1936 at the mission at Milingimbi from which Donald Thomson collected a number of these skirts.

The distinctive triangular skirt was painted for and worn by women in the final stages of Ngulmark. It is made from the split and dried leaves of the pandanus palm using the twining technique. Ceremonial skirts were generally painted like this with broad horizontal stripes. Those carried and used by women in more everyday circumstances were less ornately decorated. The term for horizontal stripes recorded by Donald Thomson is manydirakdak.

Local Name

jin-gubardabiya

Physical Description

A triangular skirt made of pandanus using the twining technique and painted with natural pigments. It has broad horizontal bands of yellow and red ochre and white and black pigment. The bands are delineated with a single row stitched with human hair string.