This story is owned by Malangi and is part of the Manarrngu mortuary rites. The central figure represents a deceased person. The crosshatching on the body was traditionally painted by senior men before burial . A song group is sitting around the body playing the didgeridoo and beating the clap sticks. As they paint the body they sing the story of the deceased who was the great hunter Gurrumirringu.

The painting also tells of how Gurrumirringu died. One day he had an exceptional days hunting, killing a turtle, wallaby, emu and many other small creatures as well as gathering wild yams and fruit. As dusk fell he decided to camp under a tree by a waterhole. He lit a fire cut up the wallaby ( see the dissected pieces in the painting ) and started cooking it on the coals. Unfortunately the tree Gurrumirringu settled under was an evil tree. This tree had enticed a venomous brown snake to live at its base. The tree hated Gurrumirringu, and so persuaded the brown snake to slither out of hiding and bite the great hunter on the ankle resulting in instant death.

Gurrumirringu spirit has now become the guardian of the Manarrgu people and the story of his life and cause of his death is re- enacted in dance and song when ever a member of a clan dies.

The Artist

Aboriginal artist David Malangi was born in 1927 and for most of his life he lived with his extended family at Yathalamara in the Northern Territory. He was the head of the Manarrngu clan and one of the most powerful elders of central Arnhem Land. With the death of clan leaders who owned adjacent lands, Malangi inherited custodianship for vast tracts of land on either side of the Goyder River, thus inheriting the associated responsibilities for caring for sacred sites, recounting the journeys of both the Djankawau creation ancestors and of the ancestor Gunmirringu.

He began bark painting as a young boy, taught by his father and uncle to paint on bodies for ceremonies, on hollow logs for burials and later on stringybark. He was taught to paint the story of his creation ancestor, Gurrumurringu, and the story of the Djangkawu sisters. David painted the stories that they sang in their ceremonies and his totems the sea eagle, crow, snake and goanna.

Karel Kupka, curator of the Aboriginal section of the Paris Museum, on visiting Arnhem Land to purchase bark paintings in 1963 collected some Malangi’s works. Sometime later McPherson of the Reserve Bank of Australia was in Paris and visited the collection. McPherson was so impressed with Malangi’s work that he requested permission to photograph it. In 1966, when Australia adopted decimal currency, the central motif of the original dollar note was a direct representation of this photographed painting by David Malangi. The artist knew nothing of this until he saw the note. The Reserve Bank later recognized his copyright and awarded him compensation and so began the recognition of Aboriginal art copyright.

His bark paintings and limited edition prints are in collections in Australia and abroad, and took him to Australia’s state capitals, New York and Tahiti.

In 1996 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the Australian National University for his “distinguished creative contribution in the service of society.” He was artist in residence at Flinders University (1982) and Sydney University (1983) and in 1988 was invited to the opening of the ‘Dreamings’ exhibition at the Asia Society Galleries in New York.

Malcolm Davidson

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