Details of Neeah Ilma

Catalog Number : 2282
Size : 58cm x 80cm
Medium : acrylic on plywood, cotton wool
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For Sale : Contact Short St Gallery
Neeah is a hill on Sunday Island. The bottom part forms the foundation of the hill, in that land. The middle part is trees and plantations, the flower is 'gidigidi'. The painted colours are the beauty of the hill itself, the colours change all over. The brown is the rocky area on top of the hill.

It was sunrise. We (my wife and I) went up over the hill, both talking and the next thing my wife said to me 'do you hear the ilma? ... do you hear that song?'. I said 'yeah', I look down the track and there it was - this ilma. I dreamt this Ilma when I found out I was not going out to One Arm Point.

Ilma is a term that refers to open ceremonies performed by the Bardi people and the objects used in these ceremonies. The Bardi's country is situated north of Broome on the Dampier Peninsula. Ilma ceremonies are composed and owned by individuals. These men are said to have received the songs and the form of the dances from rai spirits of dead men.
(Extract from Western Desert Appeal catalogue / assoc. with Papunya Tula exhibition, 2000)

Roy receives his from his father. There is traditionally a song and a dance which accompanies each Illma. Bardi totems are complex in design and are distinctively different from the more basic string cross designs in other areas of the Kimberley. The Bardi and neighbouring Jawi were a seafaring people who built flimsy rafts from light mangrove poles fastened together with wooden skewers. The people lived largely off marine products and had an unparalleled understanding of the intricacies of the treacherous tides, rips, whirlpools and overfalls for which the Buccaneer Archipelago is infamous. Their Illma is largely represnetative of the water and its many facets.