Item X 81345 Painting, bark. Liyagalawumirr. Milingimbi, Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. c.1950

Summary

The painting depicts matu, a tree with big leaves and "cheeky" or poisonous fruit. Freshwater turtle hide in the long grass and in the water where crosslike motifs are blossoms from djingi, a freshwater plant, floating on the surface of the water. The wavy lines are rain falling into the sacred waterhole. The work relates to events in ancestral times during the wet season at the sacred waterhole at Mirarrmina.

Physical Description

A single sheet of bark (Stringybark, Eucalytpus tetrodonta) painted with natural pigments.