Rerrkirrwanga Munungurr

(born 1971)

Gurtha, 2012

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Buku-Larrngay Mulka, Yirrkala (documentation attached verso, cat. 4137J)
Annandale Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso, cat. BLA737)
The Sarick Collection, Canada

EXHIBITED
Malaluba Gumana, Rerrkirrwanga Munungurr and Nawurapu Wunungmurra: New Works, bark paintings and mokuy spirits, Annandale Galleries, Sydney, 28 August - 6 October 2012

The Buku-Larrngay Mulka documentation attached verso reads:

'Rerrkirwana has painted her husband's clan minytji - that of the Gumati clan.
The totemic significance of fire to the Yunupinu family of the Gumati clan is paramount. It is said that the Gumati clan language, Dhuwalandja, is itself the tongue of flame. This language, or tongue, like the flame, cuts through all artifice. It incinerates dishonesty leaving only the bones of the truth.

In the initial interface between Yolnu sacred art and the Western art world an early decision was made on the Yolnu side to use figurative imagery to cover the miny'tji in paintings. This 'miny'tji' is the source and record of the sacred identity of the law and the land portrayed.

Throughout the ensuing decades there has been a conscious distinction between painting done in a ceremonial context and that for the 'outside world'. In all the latter cases the 'background' design has been 'covered' by a figurative representation relevant to the law therein. This usually takes the form of a totemic species such as crocodile or shark for instance. The reasoning is to protect uninitiated people from the power of unadulterated miny'tji which is the vessel of sacred ancestral forces.

This work is solely the miny'tji of the Gumati embodying gurtha or fire. The relaxation of this convention has happened only since 2000 and initially particularly in renderings on Larrakiti or memorial poles. It may be that as the viewer cannot see the entirety of any pole from one vantage this is less 'dangerous' than a two dimensional surface but that is only speculation from an outside perspective.

In ancestral times, the leaders of Yirrita moiety clans used fire for the first time during a ceremony at Ngalarwuy in Gumati country. This came about as fire brought to the Madarrpa clan country by Baru the ancestral crocodile, spread north and swept through the ceremonial ground. From this ceremonial ground the fire spread further to other sites. Various ancestral animals were affected and reacted in different ways. These animals became sacred totems of the Gumati people and the areas associated with these events became important sites.

The diamond patterning is the 'miny'tji', motif or sacred clan design, of this clan and this place. It summons the theme of this fire. The Gumati clan design associated with these events, a diamond design, represents fire; the red flames, the white smoke and ash, the black charcoal and the yellow dust. Clans owning connected parts of this sequence of ancestral events share variations of this diamond design. The shallow waters of coastal Biranybirany and associated hinterland bear this design. The Gamata (Seagrass) waving in the shallow bay mimics the flames and indicates the fire within this water.

There are other levels of meaning including an analysis of the constituent parts of Guku, bush honey which resides in the hollow Stringybark tree; the skin, blood, fat and bone of a Gumati person; the mud and weeds of a billabong close to this place which is a home of Baru, the crocodile who itself is a Gumati power totem metamorphosed through fire.'