Yalmakany Marawili
Yathikpa Muŋurru
71cm x 65cm

ID: 8801-22

After sitting under a tree and preparing rope, ancestral hunters Burrak and Garramatji went out hunting at Yathikpa in their canoe for dugong. The dugong fled to the dangerous waters around Marrtjala, the hunters harpoon striking the rock causing the Ancestral Fires to flare and boil the waters. This lead to the canoe capsizing and drowning to occur. 

The Fire had its origins at Yathikpa and was first ‘carried’ by Baru the Ancestral Crocodile who took it to sea. Fire represents a profound knowledge that takes wisdom and courage to handle correctly. If you go there, the message reads, be prepared for danger, be prepared for confrontation with the cunning and power of the crocodile and the peril of irrational seas that can boil with fire. The waving Gamata or Seagrass in the sunlit waters is a further metaphoric reference to the subacqueous fire.

The parallel wavy lines take the flow of water to the open ocean, Mungurru. It is here on the horizon that the waters from other Yirritja clans, the Madarrpa, Manggalili and Munyuku merge and mingle. The hunter’s harpoon floats incessantly between the various coastal saltwater estates of these clans. It is also here that the feminine thunderclouds take up life-giving water to rain back over the hinterlands, thence to flow through the river systems and meet the saltwater tidal surge. The transformation of saltwater into fresh and back into salt mirrors the soul as it changes its outward form from corporeal to ethereal and so on.

The trees depicted are Casuarina.