Djang'kawu
The Djanggawul, also spelt Djang'kawu or Djan'kawu, are creation ancestors in the mythology of the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Story
They are three siblings, two female and one male, who created the landscape of Australia and covered it with flora and fauna. They came by canoe from the island of Baralku, landing at Yalangbara. The sisters were the custodians of ceremonial law, and carried with them their digging sticks, feathered headwear and sacred objects hidden in their basket and mats. The objects changed into various landforms along their route, and they created freshwater wells at Yalangbara by plunging their digging sticks into the sand, after which the digging sticks turned into a variety of plant species.[1]
The Djanggawul myth[2][3] specifically concerned the Dua (Dhuwa) moiety of people, including about a third of the clans that lived in north-east Arnhem Land. The humans born of the two sisters are the ancestors of the Rirratjingu clan.[4] At a site known as Balma, high among the sand dunes, the Djang'kawu sisters gave birth to the first of the Rirratjingu clan, and performed the first ngarra ceremony, which is now one of the major ceremonies of the region.[1]
In art
A collection of bark paintings by Mawalan Marika entitled Djan'kawu story (1959) is held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.[5]
Major exhibition
The Yalangbara: art of the Djang'kawu touring exhibition, instigated by Mawalan Marika's daughter, artist Banduk Marika, and developed with the assistance of other family members and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory at Darwin, opened at the National Museum of Australia from 7 December 2010. This was the first major survey exhibition of the Marikas' work, and covers around 50 named sites in the Yalangbara peninsula that were traversed by the Djang'kawu journey.[1] It followed a 2008 monograph of the same name, edited by Margie West and produced in partnership with Banduk Marika and other members of the family.[6] The exhibition featured not only contemporary prints and other items, but also works produced at the Yirrkala mission in the 1930s, bark paintings dating from the 1950s, drawings in crayon commissioned by anthropologist Ronald Berndt, and the Djang'kawu digging stick, borrowed from its usual place alongside the Yirrkala bark petitions in Parliament House in Canberra. The exhibition also travelled to the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin and the Western Australian Museum in Perth in late 2011 and 2012.[7]
See also
- Baijini, a mythical or historical people mentioned in the Djang'kawu songline
- Djanggawul Fossae, a feature on the planet Pluto
References
- ^ a b c West, Margie (7 December 2010). "Yalangbara: art of the Djang'kawu". Western Australian Museum. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
- ^ Wells, A.E. (1971). This their dreaming. UQ Press, St.Lucia,Qld.
- ^ Berndt, Ronald M. (2004). Djanggawul: An Aboriginal Religious Cult of North-Eastern Arnhem Land. Routledge. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-415-33022-0. (Originally published 1952)
- ^ Oliver, Douglas L. (1989). Oceania: The Native Cultures of Australia and the Pacific Islands. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.
- ^ "Works from the collective title Djan'kawu story". Art Gallery of NSW. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
- ^ Marika, Banduk; West, Margie (2008). Yalangbara : art of the Djang'kawu. Darwin, N.T.: Charles Darwin University Press. ISBN 9780980384673. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
- ^ "Yalangbara: Art of the Djang'kawu". National Museum of Australia. 29 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
