Bark painting titled 'Yingapungapu' by Banapana Maymuru, 1974

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Type: Bark paintings
Date: 1974
Place: Yirrkala, East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia
Materials: Bark, Binder, Pigment
Collection: Dr Howard Morphy collection no. 3
Accession number: 1985.0269.0012

Description

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and with wooden restrainers. The painting has a central elongated shape with four fish in the middle section and anchor like shapes at either end. There are four fishing spears on the upper left side with the panel to the right of this showing a seated human figure, a tree and a small dwelling. In the lower left there are two fishing paddles and in the panel to the right a bird with three bird footprints. The painting has a black border at either end.

The first interpretation [under the heading 'Interpretations of the Yingapungapu Paintings'] is recorded from Nattitjin's older brother's daughter Wuyarrin. She was discussing the painting in figure 11.2 [1985.0269.0012], but her interpretation fits the yingapungapu paintings more generally. The long thin thing that goes down the middle is a ground called yingapungapu. The circles inside are holes in the sand. The shapes at the top and bottom are clouds, wululu. Some Yolngu came in from hunting. The paddles in the painting are their paddles. The fish in the middle of the yingapungapu are yambirrku that they had caught. Beside them the circles are turtles' eggs which they found. The spears are of two kinds?barti and makurr. They came in from hunting and sat in the shade of the tree and cooked fish. When they had cooked it, they took it to the yingapungapu ground. They ate the fish inside the ground and left it there when they had finished. They left all the fish bones and paddles on the sand. A bird called gurluwitjpiti [wader sp.] and sand crabs came and ate up all the fish bones. The wavy lines in the picture are the footmarks of the bird and the sand crab. Nyapililingu [the human figure] came from her house, gungun. She was crying because she saw two clouds and no one looking after the ground. She felt sorry for the yingapungapu ground. The birds saw her crying under the shade. She was thinking of the sacred things: of the spears and the paddles and the holes. The sand was getting old and smelly from the fish bones and skins that the hunters had left there. She then went up high into the sandhills and sat down. She turned her head and looked at the clouds above the yingapungapu, and she stayed to look after the yingapungapu, after the others had gone. Yolngu don't go to that place today. As we shall see later, Wuyarrin's interpretation of this painting differs from Narritjin's interpretation mostly in detail and in what is left out or left unspecified (Morphy, 1991, 251-253; notes in square brackets in this paragraph are as published). The remainder of the chapter on yingapungapu, from which the above was transcribed, includes comments by Narritjin on various aspects of yingapungapu, and the iconography in various paintings of this subject, without specific reference to figure 11.2 [1985.0269.0012].

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 5:02:22 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-11-11. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.