Mick England

The swamp to the north of Gochan Jiny-Jirra. This is Mick’s mother country. The design shows a hole where there is water and the cross-hatched design represents gulach, the spike rushes that grow in the swamp. Apart from painting his own An-nguliny designs, Marrawa has rights to paint the designs associated with his mother’s country. In particular he is jungkayfor the Gurnimba clan estates at Barlparnarra swamp and Ana-milerra, a site adjacent to the swamp that is associated with Jarrka, an ancestral water monitor spirit. Barlparnarra is a key site connected to the Djangkawu sisters, an important regional story associated with Miwirnba, a place to the east of the Blyth River. In the local version of this story, the two sisters are called Murlurlu jin-jar. These ancestral women danced around Barlparnarra swamp, walking and dancing with their digging sticks and placing the various plant and animal spirits that they carried in their dillybags. In this painting Marrawa has painted the gulach ‘spike rush’ design that is intrinsically associated with Barlparnarra swamp and the Murlurlu story. By painting this design, Marrawa is also honouring the memory of his dear uncle Terry Ngamandara, who was a well known artist who painted this design many times.