The Origins of Ochre

As mentioned below, on the Ngalumara Beach Tour, Gandhuwuy showed me where his ancestors collected ochre for ceremony and artwork.

The large yellow, red and white stones are found at the mouth of a fresh water spring that feeds into the Arafura Sea on the southern tip of Elcho Island (on Ngalumara Beach).

Gandhuwuy pointed out the stones, then ground them together with water and made instant ochre paint. He painted it on his skin at my request and it shows how brilliant the colours are.

Gandhuwuy will use some of the ochre paint in his artwork (which is on sale at the art centre).

Here's what I saw:

Rock Beach Walk

Here are some photos I took of the Rock Beack Walk I went on with Gandhuwuy as part of the Ngalumara Beach Tour we did on the weekend.

I'll let the pics do the talking...

Ngalumara Beach Tour

On Sunday I spent about 4 hours with Gandhuwuy (the traditional owner and clan leader of Dhambala - the homeland I am living in). He is keen to offer cultural immersion experiences for visitors to Elcho Island, here at Dhambala. He and his family would like to welcome visitors to their camp for a few hours where they will learn about Yolngu culture, language and lifestyle and try their hand at hunting, fishing, bush foods and making traditional art and craft.

I suggested he test-drive one of his 'tours' on me with the idea that I would take photos and write up the experience to be used for promotional purposes and education. Gandhuwuy was very excited, as was I and we had 4 magnificent hours exploring Ngalumara Beach, which is the next beach along from Dhambala.

On our tour Gandhuwuy took me to the remnant site of the Macassan Camp (the Macassan's visited Elcho Island from Indonesia a few hundred years ago and traded with the Yolngu), we took a tour of the Ngalumara Rock Beach (which has the most amazing display of coloured rocks you could possibly imagine) and then we went digging for bush food and found some natural ochres for painting.

I am pasting together the stories from our 'tour' with the pics, and this will become study notes for visitors as well as form the basis of a brochure.

By some amazing stroke of luck, I had a call today from a woman who helps remote communities set up and run tourism enterprises and she is wanting to bring a cruise ship to Elcho for a unquie cutlural experience in May, focusing on re-tracing the travels of the Macassans.

I said to her, 'Well, I think I might just know the perfect person to take your visitors on a tour of a remnant Macassan camp site', and she was over the moon. She was even more excited when I told her Gandhuwuy and I are putting together the story and pics from the tour on the weekend . So we have to get the job done asap...

Anyway, I thought I'd post some of the pics here to give a glimpse of what's on offer. The pics below show where the Macassan's set up camp and where they collected shells. Gandhuwuy is a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide.

Marvellous Maparu

Last week Ruth and I took a charter flight to Maparu, one of the 29 homelands the organisation we work for (Marthakal) works in partnership with. Maparu is located on mainland Arnhem Land about a 15 minute flight from Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island.

Our flight out was a bit scary as we flew through a monsoonal trough and the pilot was worried about leaving us there. He was right to worry as after our 4 hour visit, we almost couldn't get out. But we did...

We went to Maparu to visit a collective of women weavers known as Butjala Artists. This group of women, headed up by Rosyln, her momther Linda and aunty Margaret, are famous fibre artists who make amazing pandanas grass baskets, dilly bags and mats.

Ruth and I went to build on the relationship between Elcho Island Arts and Butjala Arts, to learn about their weaving and to purchase work for the art centre in Galiwin'ku. Roslyn and her family were very welcoming and we had a great time learning about fibre weaving. Roslyn is presenting at a national conference on fibre work in Canberra next month and she was on the front page of the Australian newspaper a few months ago talking about the need fore better education services in remote communities.

In total the women had produced 32 baskets, bags and mats and we were able to purchase all of them for the art centre, which was very exciting. We had to bundle them all up in plastic bags and squeeze them on to the small charter plan for the trip back to Elcho Island - again flying through very bad monsoon weather. Dark clouds, heavy rain and strong winds. One has to be a brave passenger!

Below are four pics from our visit - one of Roslyn, Linda and Margaret and their baskets, one of Ian (Rosyln's husband with one of his hand carved and painted crocodile sculptures), one of the Biker Boys of Maparu (the homeland boys who greeted us at the Maparu airstrip) and one of the died pandanas grasses used to make the magnificent baskets, bags and mats.