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Cave painting of Yingarna, Injalak Hill
Title : Cave painting of Yingarna, Injalak Hill Cave painting of Yingarna, Injalak Hill
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Source : PRG 1218/34/5243
Date of creation : 1948
Additional Creator : Mountford, Charles P., photographer
Format : Photograph
Contributor : State Library of South Australia
Catalogue record
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Copyright :

Reproduction rights are owned by the State Library of South Australia. This image may be printed or saved for personal research or study. Use for any other purpose requires permission from the State Library of South Australia and Injalak Arts. To request approval, complete the Permission to publish form.

If you believe this image should be restricted from general viewing for cultural reasons please contact the Library's enquiry service ( 08) 8207 7250 or info@slsa.sa.gov.au
Description :

Cave painting from Injalak Hill near Oenpelli, Arnhem Land. Representation of the ancestral creator Yingarna, depicted with several woven dilly bags. The dilly bags are said to contain the different language groups and clans of the area, that she distributed throughout the land.


In modern times, the Injalak Arts Centre is famous for fibre art and craft. The women use a combination of weaving styles handed down to them by their ancestors, and some taught to them by Missionaries in the 1930s. Using pandanus leaves that have been stripped, dried and dyed, they create highly acclaimed bags, baskets and mats.

Women of the area have been weaving for millennia, but because of fibre's organic composition, cave paintings such as this one are the only way of proving the longevity of the art form.

The American-Australian Expedition to Arnhem Land collected 23 baskets from the area.
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

May, Sally K. Collecting cultures : myth, politics, and collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, Lanham, Md. : AltaMira Press, 2010

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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