Barrupu Yunupingu

The totemic significance of fire to the Yunupinu family of the Gumati clan is paramount. It is said that the Gumati clan language, Dhuwalandja, is itself the tondue of flame. This language, or tongue, like the flame, cuts through all artifice. It incinerates dishonesty leaving only the bones of the truth.

In the initial interface between Yolnu sacred art and the Western art world an early decision was made on the Yolnu side to use figurative imagery to cover the miny'tji in paintings. This 'minytjl is the source and record of the sacred identity of the law and the land portrayed.

Throughout the ensuing decades there has been a conscious distinction between painting done in a ceremonial context and that for the 'outside world'. In all the latter cases the 'background' design has been 'covered' by a figurative representation relevant to the law therein. This usually takes the form of a totemic species such as crocodile or shark for instance. The reasoning is to protect uninitiated people from the power of unadulterated miny'tji which is the vessel of sacred ancestral forces.

This work is solely the minytji of the Gumatj embodying gurtha or fire. The relaxation of this convention has happened only since 2000 and particularly in renderings on Larrakitj or memorial poles. It may be that as the viewer cannot see the entirety of any pole from one vantage this is less 'dangerous' than a two dimensional surface but that is only speculation from an outside perspective.

In ancestral times, the leaders of Yirritja moiety clans used fire for the first time during a ceremony at Ngalarrwuy in Gumat; country. This came about as fire brought to the Madarrpa clan country by Bäru the ancestral crocodile, spread north and swept through the ceremonial ground. From this ceremonial ground the fire spread further to other sites. Various ancestral animals were affected and reacted in different ways. These animals became sacred totems of the Gumatj people and the areas associated with these events became important sites.

The diamond patterning is the 'miny'tji, motif or sacred clan design, of this clan and this place. It summons the theme of this fire. The Gumat; clan design associated with these events, a diamond design, represents fire; the red flames, the white smoke and ash, the black charcoal and the yellow dust. Clans owning connected parts of this sequence of ancestral events share variations of this diamond design.

There are other levels of meaning including an analysis of the constituent parts of Guku, bush honey which resides in the hollow Stringybark tree; the skin, blood, fat and bone of a Gumat; person; the mud and weeds of a billabong close to this place which is a home of Baru, the crocodile who itself is a Gumat; power totem metamorphosed through fire. 

Text:  Buku Larrngay Mulka, 2010