The Mowanjum People

The Broome 6 Gallery has works by other artists as well as the Broome 6. The six artists were, if you like, a starting point. Other artists featured in the gallery can be seen in this web site
more information>>

Visit our forthcoming exhibitions page to see the events planned for the Gallery for the rest of the year. If you would like to be reminded of these events click here and supply your email address to us and we will send you a reminder before each exhibition comes up.

it is our policy not to supply or sell our mailing list to anyone outside the gallery and its associated company.

. Another opening at the Broome 6 Gallery

THE WANDJINA PEOPLE OF THE MOWANJUM COMMUNITY

In the culture of the Worora, Ngarinyin and Wunumbul tribes, which make up the Mowanjum community outside Derby, the Wandjina is the supreme spirit being.

As with most complex cultures, opinions about creation can differ. According to David Mowaljarlai (dec), a highly respected Mowanjum elder, the Worora, Ngarinyin and Wunumbul people are the three Wandjina tribes. Only these three tribes see the Wandjinas as the true creators of the land. Many other Australian Aboriginal tribes believe that the Dreamtime snake or Rainbow Serpent was the main creative force.

According to Mowanjum artist Mabel King, during Lai Lai (the creation time), Wallungunder, the “big boss” Wandjina, came from the Milky Way to create the earth and all the people. These first people were the Gyorn Gyorn – what some gudiya (white) people call Bradshaw figures, named after the gudiya to first see them in 1891. The Gyorn Gyorn had no laws or kinship and wandered around lost.

Wallungunder saw that he could do good with these people, so he went back to the Milky Way and brought many other Wandjinas with the power of the Dreamtime snake to help him bring laws and kinship to the Gyorn Gyorn people. The Dreamtime snake represents Mother Earth and is called ungud.

The Wandjinas created the animals and the baby spirits that reside in the rock pools or sacred ungud places throughout the Kimberley, and continue to control everything that happens on the land and in the sky and sea.

Sam Woolagoodja (dec), a distinguished and eminent Worora leader and law man, described the Wandjina image by saying ‘their power is so great that they don’t need to speak, so they have no mouth. Their eyes are powerful and black, like the eye of a cyclone. The lines around a Wandjina’s head can mean lots of things – clouds, rain, lighting. The Wandjinas, he said, painted their own images on the cave walls before they returned to the spirit world.’