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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Kallum Mungulu, Lai Lai (creation time), 2025

Kallum Mungulu

Lai Lai (creation time), 2025
acrylic on canvas
120 x 198 cm
25-127
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This painting has three Wandjinas, an ungud snake, a spirit woman, two boab trees with a man and a woman inside them and some hands. In this painting I am...
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This painting has three Wandjinas, an ungud snake, a spirit woman, two boab trees with a man and a woman inside them and some hands. In this painting I am trying to show others my culture and my dreaming. Firstly, the three Wandjinas represent the three tribes of Mowanjum (which are the Worrorra, Ngarinyin and the Wunambal people and the community I belong to). The Wandjina with the spears sticking out from its head is Namarali the Wandjina that belong to the coastal people or the Worrorra tribe. The reason why it has all these spears in its head is because in the dreamtime the Wandjinas all joined together to fight with him at a place called Langi (which is my mother’s grandfather’s country and also his surname). When he was just about to die he climbed up to a cave and painted himself on the cave wall. The Wandjina on the left of Namarali is the Ngarinyin Wandjina named Wanalirri. He was the Wandjina responsible for bringing the great flood in the dreamtime. How the flood came was because some children saw a Dumbi (night jar) sing on a tree and they wanted to make fun of it, but they knew that the old people told them not to make fun or tease him because he belongs to the Wandjina. Like most kids they did not want to listen to the elders' advice, so they climbed up the tree and got the bird out and they plucked off all its feathers. They threw him up in the air and they said to him “go on try and fly” but he just fell down to the ground. They did it again but on the third try he pulled all his strength together and flew all the way to the Wandjina. When Wanalirri saw him and saw what they had done to him he got very angry and he called all the other Wandjinas, the ta ta lizard to go and search for the kids, and some brolgas to dance to make the ground like quicksand so the people won’t escape. Then Wanalirri sent the rains which fell and started to flood the place. Some people drowned from the rain, others died by getting bogged in the quicksand and others died by being closed in by boab trees which I have painted with the man and the woman inside the trees. Only a boy and girl survived the flood by hopping onto the back of a big kangaroo that took them to safety. The last Wandjina is Rimidgmarra. He was the one that stole the other Wandjinas wives. Rimidgmarra is the stealing one and he belongs to the Wunambal people. The spirit woman is a woman I saw in my mind and I asked an old man who she was and was told that she was from my father’s mother's country. I was told that she was like the first woman (just like Eve) and the mother of everyone living today. The painting of the ungud snake is always connected with the Wandjina, because he helped in the creation of the earth by slithering here and there making all the rivers and creating the land while the earth was like a jelly. Today they just stay in a large waterhole and if anyone goes there he will get up and kill them. Then we have the outlines of hands to represent the people that belong to these Wandjinas, stories and culture. When you go to the caves of these Wandjinas you will always find hand prints of the people of long ago. This painting is my story. Where I come from, my people’s story and culture and how I am connected to these Wandjinas and the land.
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