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Lot 31

Maker Unknown
A ceremonial club, Tiwi Islands

Important Australian Art

11 – 12 May 2022, 19:30 AEST

Sydney

Sold for AU$1,845 inc. premium

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Maker Unknown

A ceremonial club, Tiwi Islands
natural earth pigments on hardwood
length: 113.5cm (44 11/16in).

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Private collection, United States of America, acquired in Australia between 1967 and 1973

RELATED EXAMPLES
Forked throwing stick (milunata) illustrated in Charles P. Mountford, The Tiwi: Their Art, Myth and Ceremony, Phoenix House, London, 1958, pl. 32C
Forked throwing stick (jamburaringa) illustrated in Jennifer Isaacs, Tiwi : art, history, culture, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2012, p. 63

According to Sandra Holmes Le Brun, Tapara, the Moon man, was the creator of the forked club.1 In the Tiwi ancestor story about the first death, Tapara commits adultery with his brother Purukuparli's wife. As a result, Bima neglects her child Jinani, who dies from exposure and hunger. Tapara is described as fighting with a forked club and Purukuparli stabs his brother in the eye.2 Following the death of his son, Purukuparli taught the Tiwi people the pukumani mourning ceremony where burial posts (tutini) are carved and decorated and then placed around the grave. The form of a forked clubs often adorns the top of the pukumani poles.

1. Sandra Le Brun Holmes, The Goddess and the Moon Man: The Sacred Art of the Tiwi Aborigines, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995, p. 135
2. Jennifer Isaacs, Spirit Country: Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2002, p. 206

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