Dennis Nelson Tjakamarra

The circles represent important sites where the Pelican Ancestors stopped during their travels across the country. The travels of the ancestors are represented by the animal tracks represented as arrows. The feathery white marks are symbolic of the headware the men use during ceremonies. Aboriginal people believe the Creation or Dreamtime is the beginning of ‘knowledge’, when the laws of existence were put together. It is also the beginning of time when supernatural Ancestral beings were born out of their own eternity. It is said the Ancestors moved across the barren surface of the world, hunting and fighting. They changed the form of the land creating mountains, rivers, trees, plains, water holes and sand hills. The Ancestors were honoured by Aboriginal people in corroborees performed at sacred sites where the spirit of the Ancestors had become part of the landscape, or turned into entities such as rocks or trees.