Macassan Prau
Wonggu Mununggurr1935 - 1945
Museums Victoria
Carlton, Australia
The painting depicts a fishing vessel, a Macassan prau, and it also relates to a place called Yarrinya in the northwest corner of Blue Mud Bay in Arnhem Land. This place belongs to a group of Yirritja cans including the Munyuku clan. This work is by the legendary Arnhem Land leader Wonggu Mununggur, who had rights to paint this story through his maternal grandmother, a Munyuku woman. The prau has a distinctive square sail and fleets of these vessels with many hundreds of men came to the Arnhem Land coast each year to collect trepang or beche-de-mer and turtle shell. The fleets came each year from southern Sulawesi in the Celebes and the people of Arnhem Land would anticipate their arrival with these sails appearing on the horizon on the westerly winds that brought the annual thunderstorms and monsoonal rains. They then returned on the east or southeasterly winds that herald the dry season.
The painting is a night scene and a black background has been overpainted with red. A man stands atop the mast, while two others appear to be resting below deck in the cabin. Note the unusual depiction of eyes on the faces of these figures. The men on board are painted black and are outlined in white, while a fourth man lies inside the hull of a canoe attached the prau and is painted in red with a white outline in contrast to the others.
- Title: Macassan Prau
- Creator: Wonggu Mununggurr
- Creator Lifespan: Circa 1884 - 1958
- Creator Nationality: Indigenous Australian
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
- Creator Birth Place: Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
- Date Created: 1935 - 1945
- Physical Dimensions: w1005 x h825 x d75 mm
- Type: Object
- Rights: Artist: Wonggu Mununggurr. The Donald Thomson Collection. Donated by Mrs. Dorita Thomson to the University of Melbourne and on loan to Museum Victoria.
- External Link: Museum Victoria Collections
- Medium: Natural pigments on bark
- Subject: Aboriginal peoples (Australians), Aboriginal art, indigenous watercraft, foreign trade
- Artist Information: Wonggu Mununggurr (Djapu clan, Dhuwa moiety) was born in eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, around 1884. Wonggu is a legendary figure in the history of Arnhem Land and he features in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His extraordinary gift as a painter is perhaps less well known, and his earliest known work is the bark painting he produced for anthropologist, Donald Thomson, within days of their historic meeting at Trial Bay in northeastern Arnhem Land in July 1935. This would be the first of some seventy bark paintings that Donald Thomson would have painted for him in Arnhem Land. In 1936 and 1942 Wonggu produced a number of significant paintings depicting Macassan praus, the Indonesian fishing boats that came annually to Australia's northern waters in pursuit of trepang, a sea cucumber. These 'Macassan' paintings relate also to Munyuku clan estates in the sea in Blue Mud Bay that belong to Wonggu's mother's clan. However 'Djambuwal (Thunderman) story' (1942) is the most significant and iconic painting for the Djapu clan, and it was a collaborative work with his sons, Maama, Mawunpuy and Natjiyalma. These works are in the Donald Thomson Collection held by Museum Victoria on long term loan from the University of Melbourne. Wonggu lived most of his life in the bush around Blue Mud Bay, and when a mission was established at Yirrkala in 1936, he would spend periods of time camped there with his large family. Wonggu had 26 wives and many children, and founded a dynasty of Djapu artists that continues to the present day. Wonggu painted a significant number of works that were sold through the mission at Yirrkala, particularly during the era of the Revd Wilbur Chaseling. Those works that came into the mission to be sold were dispersed to the collections of Museum Victoria, the Australian Museum, Queensland Museum and the Anthropology Museum at the University of Queensland. The works that Wonggu painted for anthropologist, Ronald Berndt in 1947 can be found in the collections of the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney.
- Artist: Wonggo Mununggurr
Get the app
Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more
You are all set!
Your first Culture Weekly will arrive this week.