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Oenpelli lagoon from Injalak
Title : Oenpelli lagoon from Injalak Oenpelli lagoon from Injalak
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Creator : Mountford, Charles P., photographer
Source : PRG 1218/35/1703
Date of creation : 1948
Format : Photograph
Dimensions : 25 x 35 mm
Contributor : State Library of South Australia
Catalogue record
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Copyright :
Description :

Aboriginal man sitting atop Injalak Hill looking out over Oenpelli.


There are four distinct ecosystems in the area surrounding the Oenpelli settlement; the lagoon and surrounding swampland, savannah woodlands, flood plains, and the 'stone country' of the escarpment.

In this photograph taken atop the escarpment we can see the black soil of the flood plains stretching out to the lagoon. The lagoon was home to a plethora of bird, plant and insect life, and was a rich source of subjects for the natural scientists in the party. The film Birds and Billabongs, made by Mountford and cinematographer Peter Bassett-Smith provides a snapshot of this biodiversity.

On the other side of the lagoon tents marking the Expedition's campsite are just visible.

"looking from our tent doors, we could see a placid lagoon, dotted with water-lilies and numberless birds and fringed with green-rushes; on the distant shore was the eucalyptus forest; beyond that the brown buffalo-grass flood plain, and behind that, again, the high escarpment of the rugged Arnhem Land plateau, blue with the haze of distance." ('Records of the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land, vol 1, p. xxviii)
Subjects
Coverage year : 1948
Place : Oenpelli
Region : Northern Territory
Further reading :

American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, (1948). Records of the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land, Melbourne : Melbourne University Press, 1956-1964

Berndt, Ronald M. and Catherine H. Man, land & myth in North Australia : the Gunwinggu people, Sydney : Ure Smith, 1970

Berndt, Ronald M. and Phillips, E. S. (eds). The Australian Aboriginal heritage : an introduction through the arts, 2nd ed, Sydney : Australian Society for Education through the Arts in association with Ure Smith, 1978

Cole, Keith. A history of Oenpelli, Darwin : Nungalinya Publications, 1975

Hamby, Louise (ed). Twined together = kunmadj njalehnjaleken, Gunbalanya, N.T. : Injalak Arts and Crafts, 2005

Lamshed, Max. 'Monty' : the biography of C.P. Mountford, Adelaide : Rigby, 1972

National Geographic Magazine, vol. 96, no. 6, 1949, pp. 745-782, 'Exploring Stone-age Arnhem Land' by Charles P. Mountford.

Simpson, Colin, Adam in ochre : inside Aboriginal Australia, 5th ed, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1962
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