Ngarra minytji (Ngarra ceremony design)
Makani Wilingarr1937
Museums Victoria
Carlton, Australia
This work is attributed to Mildjingi clan leader, Makani Wilingarr (born around 1905 and died 1985). The Melbourne based anthropologist, the late Professor Donald Thomson collected it in his travels across Arnhem Land in northern Australia. It is one of four Mildjingi paintings in a larger series of ceremonial body designs produced between January and June 1937 that replicated the sacred body designs painted for Ngarra, a sacred men's ceremony. He witnessed these ceremonies and photographed a group of senior men with this painted on their bodies.Donald Thomson described this pattern as 'extremely conventionalised' and commented that it was 'only painted on the last day' the ceremony. The design relates to sacred sites in the sea off the coast of central Arnhem Land associated with totemic ancestors important to the Mildjingi clan. Two ancestors are depicted here standing up and walking along as 'friends together'. This work is one of around 70 bark paintings collected by Donald Thomson between 1935 and 1937 and in 1942. A large proportion of these are truly magnificent and important works; and this is without question one of the finest paintings in the Donald Thomson Collection on long-term loan to Museum Victoria from the University of Melbourne.
- Title: Ngarra minytji (Ngarra ceremony design)
- Creator: Makani Wilingarr
- Creator Lifespan: Circa 1905 - 1985
- Creator Nationality: Indigenous Australian
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
- Creator Birth Place: Central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
- Date Created: 1937
- Physical Dimensions: w617 x h1256 x d7 mm
- Type: Object
- Rights: Artist Makani Wilingarr. The Donald Thomson Collection. Donated by Mrs. Dorita Thomson to the University of Melbourne and on loan to Museum Victoria.
- Medium: Natural pigments on Eucalyptus bark
- Subject: Aboriginal peoples (Australians), Aboriginal art
- Artist Information: Makani Wilingarr, born about 1905 died 1985, Mildjingi clan, Yirritja moiety, central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Makani was ritual leader for the Wilingarr section of the Mildjingi clan, and, like many of his contemporaries, lived between the mission at Milingimbi and his homeland around the mouth of the Glyde River on the Arnhem Land mainland. Makani relocated to Maningrida when it was established as a government settlement in 1957 where he remained until his death. He was one of the main ceremonial leaders at Maningrida with close relatives and painters, Baku and Bilinyara. Throughout the 1960s and seventies, Makani achieved great notoriety as a bark painter and was an accomplished artisan, crafting and painting artefacts as well. Makani was the focus of a film by David Attenborough. The paintings collected by Donald Thomson and attributed to Makani are done with the most extraordinary and exquisite precision. These are found in the Donald Thomson Collection held by Museum Victoria on long term loan from the University of Melbourne. His work is well represented in other major public museum collections and private collections in Australia and overseas; such as the Edgar Wells Collection at Museum Victoria, the Arnott Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney), the collections of the Australian National Gallery and National Museum of Australia (Canberra), and the Ed Ruhe Collection at the University of Virginia, USA.
- Artist: Makani Wilingarr
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