GARNKINY NGARRANGGARNI: Featuring Mabel Juli
Past exhibition
Patrick Mung Mung Australian, Gija, b. 1948
NYIDBARRIYA - NYAWANA
natural earth pigment on canvas
120 x 90 cm
828195
'This Nyidbarriya, that place. I never put that nother one Goolawoony, brother for him. They Nyawana and Janama, brother and sister. That father for old Shirley [Purdie] same name, his...
'This Nyidbarriya, that place. I never put that nother one Goolawoony, brother for him. They Nyawana and Janama, brother and sister. That father for old Shirley [Purdie] same name, his nharroogoo [someone who shares the same name]. He was Janama.' Nyidbarriya is a pointed hill in Boornoolooloo (Purnululu) country. Nyidbarriya was a woman, who was of Nyawana skin within the Gija kinship system. This means she was the correct skin to marry the moon, who was Joowoorroo. The moon rejected all of the Nyawanas in his desire for the Nambin woman were all of Nyawana skin. Nyidbarria's brother Goolawoony, stands beside her as a hill. He was of Janama skin and according to kinship law should have called the moon his brother-in-law. Rusty Peters says Janama felt sorry for the moon when the people denied him marriage to the woman of Nambin skin. Patrick points out that Shirley Purdie's father Sandy Thomas's Gija name was Goolawoony. Gija people's traditional or 'bush' names are tied to the skin name which is determined by the skin of their mother. So Janama men could be called after this hill and Nyawana women are sometimes given Nyidbarria's name.