Liyawaday Wirrpanda
Wayawu/Dhuruputjpi/Yalata
171 x 12cm

ID: 1049-25

There are two clan groups represented on this bark- the  Maŋgalili clan and the Dhud-Djapu clan. The miny’tji (sacred clan designs) with parallel banding describes the Maŋgalili freshwater and talks of Ŋuykal the Kingfish, rotting wood raŋga (sacred object) under the water and the sacred yoku (corms of the water lily) representing the yothu (children) of the Maŋgalili fed on by the Bilthu (Rifle fish). The Ŋuykal: Turrum, carangoides emburyi , Kingfish, enters into freshwater to breed. A strong swimming fish seen seasonally cruising along shore lines are speared by Yolŋu. It is totem for the Maŋgalili clan. It is the journey of this fish (up freshwater rivers to breed) that created important ties with relative clans. Ŋuykal’s travelling included a path from Dhonydji to the Wayawu River, passed through Dhälinbuy, a site where the Wangurri clanspeople have settled. At Wayawuwuy, Ŋuykal changed into the hollow log Milkamirri. The sacred design represents the Yoku or lily corm eaten by Ŋoykal whilst at the Wayawu River. He swims up stream towards the sacred rock Dhukurru from where ancestors once stood to spear the big fish. Ŋuykal people dance, with spear throwers the tail and sacred dilly bag in mouth. The concept of lily bulbs in dillybags has an echo in Maŋgalili children in the womb. Thus the Wayawu is the freshwater source of Maŋgalili souls and an analogy for the Milky Way which is also seen as the reservoir of Maŋgalili souls from which children spring to select their parents. This painting depicts in sacred abstraction the corms still attached to the plant, being washed from the lily beds by the flooding Wayawu and represents the Maŋgalili essence (of Ŋuykal) in this water. The Wayawu river also runs into the Dhudi Djapu clan country at Dhuruputjpi. The herringbone pattern depicts this country around Dhuruputjpi. It has the freshwaters of the Wayawu River running through it. At the old camp starts a massive ground of paperbarks in black mud that floods in the wet. A walk through leads to a large billabong that has been fished since Mäna (ancestral shark) and giant barramundi and saratoga lived there. Looking up the far bank of more black mud and large melaeluca, it eventually curves around out of sight. The actions of Ancestral Shark – Gundunuru were swum in these waters. Dharraŋgi, a freshwater palm like leaf stands out of the water bank here hiding the domain of Mäna. In other holes small (freshwater) shark are observed in season. This is part of Dhudi Djapu land, Dharraŋgi the sacred water weed and freshwater is made sacred by this Dhudi-Djapu design. Yolŋu refer to it as Garrinyirri. There are designs for the flood plain of Yalata and the inundation through Djowuy as well. These two waters stand in a mother-child relationship. This adjacent area is sacred for the two Dhuwa sisters of creation who strode the land creating sacred springs with their staffs and transforming to Brolga.