Click to enlargeNarrawu Wanambi
- Region
- Arnhem Land
- Community
- Yirrkala
- Language group
- Yolŋu
Marrnu at Djarrakpi, 1990
natural earth pigments on bark
44 x 107 cm
- Provenance
- Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, NT, Cat No. 1612j
Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW
- Exhibited
- Big Country: Australian Aboriginal Art Coast to Coast, USW, Jeffrey Moose Gallery, Seattle USA, June – September 2012
- Artwork story
- This work depicts Marrnu the Ancestral Possum who was with the Ancestral Guwark co-founder of Djarrakpi for the Mangalili people. A sacred tree called the Marawili marks this spot and can be used in many differing manifestations to show mangalili iconography. Here the Marawili takes on the guise of the hollow log which used by the Mangalili (and other Yolngu clans) as a coffin for the final rites of mortuary. The crosshatching represents the running sand of the Djarrakpi beachscape.