The Dealer is the Devil Read online

  Today, few white collectors know the detailed stories depicted in important bark paintings. Nor do they understand where the cultural boundaries between various moieties and clans begin and end. They find it relatively easy, however, to tell the difference between bark paintings produced on Groote Eylandt, for instance, and those created at Yirrkala, Maningrida, Ramingining, Oenpelli, the Tiwi Islands or the Kimberley.

  Images from Oenpelli in Western Arnhem Land come from artists whose surrounding outstations lie in what is known as the Stone Country. Before European settlement, the deep fissures, rock overhangs and caves in this area provided shelter where family and clan groups would camp until the end of the annual wet season. With the onset of the dry season, they would set off across the wetlands hunting, foraging and living in shelters constructed from bark slabs. Their technological skill in removing bark from trees, flattening and curing it with fire and hot rocks, and preparing it to make canoes, shelters, baskets, implements and ceremonial regalia, was finely honed and developed over centuries. Until the introduction of metal implements, they relied solely on ground and knapped stone, shells and naked flame.

  David Malangi, Mud Flats at Dhamala, 1999. Natural earth pigment on stringybark, 109 x 47 cm.

  Butjiya and Gawarrin strip a sheet of bark to be cured at Yirrkala, 1965. (this and other photographs of early bark painters that follow, courtesy of the Jim Davidson collection)

  The Western Arnhem Land works that Baldwin Spencer began collecting in the early 20th century featured figurative imagery infilled with crosshatching against a plain background. These relate more strongly to rock art than bark painting from any other region other than the Kimberley. Though there were many fine artists using this style, perhaps the most influential of all the great exponents of the classical period of bark painting (1950–1980) was David Yirawala.27

  Born in the 1890s, Yirawala underwent many levels of initiation that reached their culmination when he was 45 years of age. By this time he had received the final secrets that enabled him to become a great ritual leader, with knowledge over all the secular and sacred ceremonial content of Kunwinjku iconography. He began painting on barks at the Methodist mission on Croker Island during the 1950s. At this time, Croker Island had become a melting pot of clans, and Yirawala joined a dynamic group of artists who were able to paint with a greater degree of artistic freedom than they could in the mission at Oenpelli.

  Yirawala’s paintings related to ritual, in that they portrayed creation ancestors, totemic plants and animals and, at their most complex, incidents drawn from epic narratives that are re-enacted during ceremony. He and Paddy Compass, in particular, died prior to the advent of an arts industry as such, yet their works are now amongst the most collectable of all the Aboriginal bark paintings.

  In 1964, when Sandra Le Brun Holmes met Yirawala, they embarked upon the long and fateful relationship that ultimately defined his career. He was fiery-eyed, sinewy, intense and absolutely committed to his culture. She was a voluptuous brunette with a dash of natural glamour and a taste for adventure who had scant regard for international collectors such as the American Louis Allen. She considered them no better than ‘tomb raiders’ who were taking the best pieces out of the country. Indeed, Yirawala was devastated when he learned that works he’d created during the previous nine years had been sold off like jigsaw puzzle pieces by the mission, and were now scattered on the wind. She assured Yirawala that in future his paintings would be kept together, and he agreed to create a new body of work. The contract they drew up gave her first option on all of his paintings and as a result, largely against the odds, Sandra Le Brun Holmes gathered more than 100 works that documented important aspects of the Maraian ceremonial ritual, the major song cycle of Western Arnhem Land. These are now housed in the National Gallery of Australia.

  Yirawala was vitally concerned that balanda (outsiders) should understand the cultural significance of his work. As a result, Sandra published the first biography of a bark artist, Yirawala, Artist and Man, and together with husband Cecil, made the film Yirawala, Picasso of Arnhem Land. She and Yirawala later travelled together to southern cities for the exhibitions that followed, and like Albert Namatjira two decades earlier, Yirawala became an art star. He was made a Member of the British Empire for his services to Aboriginal art in 1971, and later that same year he received the International Art Cooperation Award. In spite of the acclaim and awards, he was powerless to prevent the mining encroaching on his homelands in Western Arhnem Land, which troubled him to his dying day.

  Yirawala pioneered a number of artistic innovations. He was amongst the first to heighten the elegance of his figures and their spiritual presence by incorporating rarrk, which was formerly restricted to use in ceremonial body painting, and experimenting with the monochrome base colour of the bark. As Judith Ryan wrote in her landmark National Gallery of Victoria catalogue Spirit in Land, it was the ‘conjunction of the metaphysical and physical elements, the revelation of the cosmic within the concrete, [that] gave Kunwinjku art its transformational edge’.28 It is what Picasso meant when he claimed that ‘this is what I have been trying to achieve all my life’.29

  In 1989 the National Gallery of Australia acquired the Holmes’ collection of 139 bark paintings, marking the first and only time to my knowledge that a body of work depicting a single ceremonial song cycle has been kept intact.

  Due to regular visits by a small number of anthropologists, field operatives and dealers, the artists on Croker Island came to define modern bark painting throughout the 1960s. The Americans Ed Ruhe and Louis Allen were amassing important collections, and by 1961 Jim Davidson was making regular trips to Arnhem Land, having opened his Aboriginal and Pacific Art Gallery in Melbourne. Other important early dealers included Stephen Kellner and Robert Ypes in Sydney.

  David Yirawala, c. 1960.

  In 1963, the Czech anthropologist and painter Karel Kupka began purchasing the first of what would become a collection of 230 bark paintings. Kupka’s modernist sensibility inevitably impacted upon the artists’ depiction of sorcery, previously suppressed by the mission. Paddy Compass in particular produced rare images of Mimi and spirit figures imbued with sexual tension and ribald humour, as well as the darker acts of magic songs and ceremony. He painted male figures with huge sub-incised penises, leering toward the protruding genitals of females. These are works of playful lust, pulsing with erotic energy and rhythmic movement.

  Kupka purchased one of David Malangi’s first works in 1963, for the Musée National des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie in Paris. Three years later, the image, entitled Mortuary Feast, was noticed by the Australian Reserve Bank, and without Malangi’s permission used as a design for the new Australian $1 bill. The design depicted the funeral of the first man, the hunter Gurrmirringu. He is surrounded by seated songmen with clap sticks and didgeridoo, ensuring that his ancestral spirit arrives safely at its final destination. Surrounding the group are the animals that represent the hunter’s catch. The white berry tree, with its ordered rows of berries and leaves, structures and frames the picture, while at its roots lurks Dharpa, the King Brown Snake, the evil spirit whose bite had killed Gurrmirringu. This image marks the occasion of the first death, and how Gurrmirringu’s spirit came to watch over the Manyarrngu people.

  Andrew Margululu and Anne with David Malangi and his wife Elsie Ganbada at Yathalamarra, as David proudly shows off his medal.

  Malangi’s anguish at the unauthorised use of his design stimulated a fervent debate about Aboriginal legal and moral rights. He was eventually awarded a specially struck medal and paid $1,000 for the design. The Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Nugget Coombs, who had been greatly affected by Malangi’s distress, subsequently became his lifelong friend. I had the great pleasure of being present during their last meeting and took a photo of these two great Australians, with the medal that David had proudly retrieved from an old bakelite schoolcase. The setting was the beautiful freshwater wetland at Yathalamarra, his mo
ther’s country. By then David had been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the Australian National University and was affectionately referred to as Dr David Daymirringu Malangi. Unfortunately, the National Museum of Victoria borrowed the photograph and it was never returned.

  Only a few of the artists born prior to the 1930s survived to participate in the burgeoning Aboriginal arts industry post-1990. They included David Malangi, Lofty Nadjamerrek, Mick Kubarkku and England Bangala. Many other extremely fine painters such as Peter Marralwanga and Bobby Barrdjaray Nganjmirra passed into relative obscurity after their deaths in the 1970s and 1980s. Marralwanga is particularly worthy of mention, as he was taught to paint by Yirawala, his lifelong friend and countryman. His innovative rarrk techniques empowered many of the next generation of artists, such as John Mawurndjul, and Marralwanga’s sons Ivan Namirrkki and Samuel Namunjdja, who continue to experiment and innovate today.

  In contrast to Mawurndjul, who uses rarrk designs to drive his work into pure abstraction, Marralwanga’s compositions were always figurative. He explained the interplay in his work between stylistic conventions and his own personal interpretation as being ‘half secret one, half ordinary one’.30 Although he lived and died before Aboriginal art gained its current national and international prominence, he had solo exhibitions with Mary Macha at Aboriginal Traditional Arts in Perth in 1981 and 1983. At that time he was considered one of the most influential Kunwinjku artists of his generation, second only to Yirawala.

  Ironically, the majority of works by the ‘first generation painters’ of Arnhem Land fetch lower prices at auction today than those of less ritually informed bark artists currently practising in the same region. To date, Yirawala’s record price at auction is $49,850, and works by Paddy Compass have achieved no more than $33,400. Mysteriously, only one or two works by either artist has achieved these stellar results, and the majority of the finest works created by a great number of their contemporaries can be acquired for as little as $5,000. In contrast artworks by the still practising John Mawurndjul have reached unparalleled prices amongst painters in the bark tradition. After he was propelled into the international spotlight post-2000, paintings by Mawurndjul sold for as much as $90,000.

  NORTH EAST ARNHEM LAND

  On an isolated beach on the coast off the Arafura Sea sits the colourful grave of one of Arnhem Land’s most revered and politically effective leaders, the Gumatj clan elder Munggurrawuy Yunupingu. It is covered in bright plastic flowers, and sits in front of several simple old dwellings. Directly behind it is the towering machinery of the Rio Tinto bauxite mine which has spilled its noxious chemical effluent straight into the bay on more than one occasion.31 The grave itself is modest but it’s a sacred place for Munggurrawuy’s many descendants, including his son, the Northern Territory political heavyweight, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, a Member of the Order of Australia and Australian of the Year in 1978. Other renowned offspring included the late Mandawuy, lead singer of the internationally acclaimed rock band Yothu Yindi, and the award-winning artist Gulumbu Yunupingu.

  In 2008, I found myself sitting in the shade of the huge pandanus palm nearby, in a circle of deeply concerned elderly women and representatives of the Aboriginal Benefits Foundation.32 We had gathered to discuss the terrifying rate of youth suicide and substance abuse in their community. We all knew that the drugs, sex workers and alcohol attracted to the nearby township of Nhulunbuy (formerly Gove) by the mining industry were directly responsible for this dire situation. What could any of us do when a recent deal had extended the life of the mine for decades to come, and condemned the local people to abandon this beach forever? Some metres away, 60 unemployed youths were subsisting on welfare in a big shed without sanitation or utilities. With no public transport, it was a $50 cab ride from the temptations of Nhulunbuy.

  The elders desperately wanted help, and envisaged a healing centre where Western and traditional Yolngu therapies could be applied. Over the following 12 months the foundation raised more than $300,000 for the project. Architects’ plans were drawn up and a site surrounding a sacred Banyan tree was prepared. Unfortunately within six months, Prime Minister John Howard’s controversial Northern Territory Intervention had taken control of the land from the local Indigenous council, and the project stalled, never to be revived. The social dysfunction continues.

  Of all the Indigenous people of the continent, the Yolngu of East Arnhem Land have had the longest and most complex dealings with outsiders. Some historians believe that Arab traders visited the region as early as the 5th century. They were followed by the Portuguese, the Spanish and the Chinese, long before the Macassans of the Indonesian archipelago. None, however, has made as great an impact on the local people as the international mining conglomerates. During the last 50 years, the Yolngu’s heroic fight to protect themselves and their land from the predations of the resource extraction industry has presented both a grim, and occasionally transcendent, story, with bark painters making a vital political contribution.

  Groote Eylandt is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. A quarter of the world’s manganese is mined there by GEMCO, a subsidiary of BHP Billiton. Though the earliest bark paintings were collected there in the 1920s, the most definitive collections from this region were assembled in the 1960s and 1970s by émigré lawyer and anthropologist Dr Leonhard Adam and Californian businessman and graphic designer Jerome Gould.33

  Groote Eylandt barks were relatively common until the 1970s. They were characterised by a plain, usually black background, with stark contrasting and stylised figurative elements generally infilled with parallel continuous broken lines, and outlined in red or yellow. Subjects generally centred on hunting and fishing and included canoes, dugongs, fish and plants. Macassan praus and their inhabitants were common. On occasion, these barks were actually cut to the shape of the creature depicted. As a result of the social upheaval caused by mining, the bark painting tradition was almost totally extinct after the 1980s, and early examples have become very highly prized.

  In stark contrast to the cultural dissipation on Groote Eylandt, the Yirrkala community became home to one of Australia’s most vibrant art centres. From the moment the first barks were collected by the mission in 1935, they exhibited brilliant clan designs with detailed narrative elements. The Methodist missionary Rev. Wilbur S. Chaseling encouraged the creation of a range of cultural material and dispatched them to museums and marketing outlets in the southern states.

  Amongst the most revered early painters were the fathers and grandfathers of many of today’s most successful artists. They included the senior custodian of the Gumatj clan, Munggurrawuy Yunupingu; Mathaman Marika, his elder brother Mawalan, and Mawalan’s eldest son Wandjuk Marika of the Rirratjingu clan; and Narritjin Maymuru who, along with his brother Nanyin, and a classificatory brother Bokarra, became the leaders of the Manggalili clan.

  Munggurrawuy Yunupingu, c. 1960.

  Mathaman Marika, c. 1960.

  Munggurrawuy and Mathaman were amongst the first painters commissioned by Chaseling. Both were born before intensive European colonisation, and became the principal informants to Charles Mountford and Roland and Catherine Berndt in the production of much of the early literature on the song poetry of Arnhem Land. They, and several of their contemporaries, developed the episodic style (in which the painted surface is divided into narrative panels) that has become typical of this region.

  The Yolngu spiritual leaders went on to use their art as a weapon in what became one of the most potent and contentious land rights claims in Australian history. As early as the 1950s, they could see that their most important sites were under threat from the encroachment of bauxite mining.

  Mathaman Marika was politicised when still in his early 20s. He spent two years in jail following a series of conflicts with white land surveyors during World War II. Following his release, like David fighting Goliath, he began to paint episodic bark narratives relating important Rirratjingu creation stories in intimate detail. Toge
ther, they form a body of work that is one of the most sophisticated land rights statements ever produced by an Aboriginal Australian. It marked the beginning of the long struggle by Yolngu artists against the rapacious mining industry.

  One of the important protaganists of bark politics, Mathaman Marika at work, c. 1960.

  As a teenager, Mathaman’s nephew, Wandjuk Marika, travelled with his father and Donald Thomson across Cape Arnhem, looking out for Japanese soldiers and gathering intelligence for the army. In 1943 Wandjuk escorted a party of white ‘explorers’ ostensibly looking for a good place to build an airstrip. Another group of balanda34 arrived in 1953, with drills to take soil samples, including the red bauxite gravel that later became the centre of the land rights claim. But like his uncle, Wandjuk soon realised that the Europeans’ apparent interest in the Rirratjingu masked their desire for the mineral wealth in their land. One of the only Yolngu who spoke fluent English, as a result of Chaseling’s tutelage, Wandjuk became the main interpreter between the elders of all the different clans and the balanda world.

  Wandjuk played a significant role in the creation of the 1963 Bark Petition, when sacred paintings and ceremonial objects were brought as evidence of land ownership before the Australian courts. The petition was presented in both Yolngu and English, and signed by 17 clan leaders. It was typed on paper and glued to a sheet of stringybark on which a border of traditional symbolic motifs had been painted.