- Museum number
- Object: Freshwater goanna at Milipa
Painting of bark with stick supports fastened with string (red-ochre, yellow-ochre, black and cream). Depicts the creatures seen by the Djan'kawu (ancestral beings of the Dhuwa moiety) when they created the Milngurr waterhole at Milipa for the Ngalmil people: small fish (ngakanbal), freshwater goanna (djerrka), and oxeye herring (nyungala). The background lines refer to the leaves of the wooly water lily (darra) growing at the waterhole.
- Production date
- 20thC (before 1986)
Length: 133 centimetres
Width: 47.60 centimetres (painting)
Width: 54.80 centimetres (with frame)
- Curator's comments
- From Eth Doc 1064, 'Artist's account': 'This is the place called Milipa. They (the Djan'kawu) arrived here from Yalangbara (in Rirratjingu country). They put a sacred ceremony to this area for only the Ngaymil people. Whey [sic] they put the stick into the ground, the water came out from the waterhole. We call that (the waterhole) Milngurr. They been singing the sacred song about what they seen in the water, in the billabong. They sing about the small fish, ngakanbal. They sing about the fish that move around the water and when they move the water bubbles.
They turn around and look up and they see the water goanna, djerrka. They sing about the water goanna. Then they sing a sacred song about this fish here nyungala (oxeye herring - the big fish). They sing about all the fish and animals they saw.
The line (background design) is the leaves darra (wooly water lily) that grow all around the swamp covering that waterhole.
Only important old men can go in that place. Women or young men can't go there, and no-one can go hunting there from Ngaymil clan. Other clans can go there but they have to ask (permission from the Ngaymil owners) first.'
- Not on display
- Poor, cracked.
- Acquisition date
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number