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$1,950 (tax inc.)
1 in stock
This painting from Kallum is Lalai. The creation story. On top are the Wandjina that come to earth from the Milky Way. In the middle the bird is really important but that is a bit of a sacred story. We see it as the dark emu in the Milky Way. In this painting I am trying to show others my culture and my dreaming. There are the three tribes of Mowanjum (which are the Worrorra, Ngarinyin and the Wunambal people and the community I belong to). The Wandjina with the spears sticking out from its head is Namarali the Wandjina that belong to the coastal people or the Worrorra tribe. The reason why it has all these spears in its head is because in the dreamtime the Wandjinas all joined together to fight with him at a place called Langi (which is my mother’s grandfather’s country and also his surname). When he was just about to die he climbed up to a cave and painted himself on the cave wall. How the flood came was because some children saw a Dumbi (night jar) sitting on a tree and they wanted to make fun of it, but they knew that the old people told them not to make fun or tease him because he belongs to the Wandjina. Like most kids they did not want to listen to the elders’ advice, so they climbed up the tree and got the bird out and they plucked off all its feathers. They threw him up in the air and they said to him “go on try and fly” but he just fell down to the ground. They did it again but on the third try he pulled all his strength together and flew all the way to the Wandjina. When Wanalirri saw him and saw what they had done to him he got very angry and he called all the other Wandjinas, the tata lizard to go and search for the kids, and some brolgas to dance to make the ground like quicksand so the people won’t escape. Then Wanalirri sent the rains which fell and started to flood the place. Some people drowned from the rain, others died by gettng bogged in the quicksand and others died by being closed in by boab trees. Only a boy and girl survived the flood by hopping onto the back of a big kangaroo that took them to safety. The painting of the ungud snake is always connected with the Wandjina, because he helped in the creation of the earth by slithering here and there making all the rivers and creating the land while the earth was like a jelly. Today they just stay in a large waterhole and if anyone goes there he will get up and kill them. This painting is my story. Where I come from, my people’s story and culture and how I am connected to these Wandjinas and the land.
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