Lena Yarinkura

Lena Yarinkura is a senior West Arnhem Land, NT artist.  This work by the artist relate to the Marradijiri ceremony, known throughout Arnhem Land, is a ceremony of diplomacy given by one group to another to establish good relations and strengthen kinship and economic ties. The central object in the ceremony is a pole decorated with clan designs.  The decoration is undertaken as part of the ceremony. It is accompanied by the performance of an associated song cycle and may take two to three weeks to complete, commencing nightly just before sunset and lasting several hours.

The pole is said to represent a mast of a Makassan prau, or fishing boat.  On the final night of the ceremony the pole appears out of the darkness on the edge of the camp, decorated with feathered tassels and long ropes representing the rigging of the prau. Dancers hold these ropes and move the pole back and forth in the fashion of a prau rolling in rough sea.

They then dance with the pole until it is finally presented to the host group and set into the ground as the head song man chants a long list of clan names associated with the travels of creation ancestors.  When the dancers part with the pole they break into mourning, as they may have done at the end of each Makassan trepang (sea cucumber) season when their Makassan visitors returned to Sulawesi on the dry season winds.  The pole is then kept by the host group, often being hung from the roof of a dwelling.

Source:  Maningrida Arts and Culture, 2010