13
Hollow log memorial poles
In addition to yingapungapu, painted hollow log
memorial poles are used to remember culturally
important people. In eastern Arnhem Land, larrakitj
is the name for both the hollow log coffin and the
ceremony, the last in a sequence of mortuary rites
performed after a person has died. Traditionally, the
ceremony was conducted over several weeks in the
secrecy of a men’s camp. In the final stages, the bones
(buried for around a decade) were cleaned, crushed,
painted with red ochre and placed inside the pole,
an activity accompanied by singing and dancing. The
deceased’s spirit was then at peace, and the burial pole
and its contents covered and left to decay. Larrakitj are
formed from a stringybark tree
(Eucalyptus tetrodonta)
,
which has been hollowed by termites; it is stripped
of its outer bark, rounded and smoothed and, finally,
painted with miny’tji (sacred clan designs).
Philip Gudthaykudthay is a senior custodian of the
wagilag creation narrative. His totem is burruwara, the
spotted quoll or native cat, while Gunyunmirringa, a
small flat eucalyptus forest in central Arnhem Land, is
his principle totemic site.
Badurru in Gunyungmirringa
landscape no.6
1983 is an abstract painting on bark
of this site. It features a badurru (hollow log burial
pole) embedded in the landscape, which the artist has
painted as a central elongated shape.
Yanggarriny Wunungmurra
Australia c.1932–2003
Dhalwangu larrakitj (Dhalwangu clan burial pole)
2002
Wood
(Eucalyptus tetrodonta)
with natural pigments
233 x 18cm (diam.)
Acc. 2003.164
Purchased 2003. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Memorial poles of great significance in the Gallery’s
Collection include
Dhalwangu larrakitj (Dhalwangu
clan burial pole)
2002, the final work made by the great
artist Yanggarriny Wunungmurra (c.1932–2003), and
Lorrkon (Burial pole)
2006 by Mickey Durrng. Durrng
was working to finish his monumental lorrkon before
his death from a protracted illness. He is honoured
in the exhibition by an installation of his poles and
barks against a wall painted with his distinctive
striped djirrididi design.
The five
Mungurru (Ocean water) Dhalwangu clan
memorial poles
by Nawurapu Wunungmurra describe
the journey of a deceased person’s spirit, singing
its way through the north-eastern Arnhem Land
waterways to the coast, where brackish flood plains
mingle with salty seawater. From there, the spirit is
swept out to the deep Yirritja moiety oceanic waters on
the horizon. With a powerful leap, the spirit transforms
into a drop of saltwater and becomes vapour, rising
eventually to its ‘mother’, wangupini (cumulonimbus
clouds) hovering above the horizon. ‘Pregnant’ with life-
giving freshwater, these maternal clouds, painted with
brushy strokes on a black ground, move across the land
and shed water as rain which flows as rivulets off the
escarpment.
Death and life — the cycle continues.
