NOTES
- Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 91 × 60 cm, purchased 1994, 11th NATSIAA, Telstra Collection.
- Sometimes also known as Miriam Rose Ungunmerr Bauman.
- This situation is about to change. Varga Hosseini, a doctoral candidate at Flinders University, is writing his dissertation on this subject, and Vivonne Thwaites is curating an exhibition, Holy Holy, for the 2004 Adelaide Festival of Arts, to be held at the Flinders University Art Museum's new North Terrace Gallery.
- See for example Rosemary Crumlin, “Aboriginal Spirituality: Land as Holder of Story and Myth in Recent Aboriginal Art,” Religious Business: Essays on Australian Aboriginal Spirituality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; and Rosemary Crumlin and Anthony Knight, Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, Melbourne: Colins Dove, 1991.
- David Bourke, Dreaming of the Resurrection: A Reconciliation Story, North Sydney: The Trust of the Sisters of St Joseph for Mary Mackillop, 1998.
- R.M. Berndt, An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Paris: Mouton, 1962; Deborah Bird Rose and Tony Swain, Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions, Adelaide: Australian Association for the Study of Religions, 1988.
- John Harris, One Blood: 200 Years of Aboriginal Encounter with Christianity: A Story of Hope, NSW: Albatross, 1990.
- Also known as “Elch'o Island,” to the north of Darwin. Note that the comma in this word indicates a glottal stop.
- See Matthew 2, 1–11.
- Gali Yalarriwuy in Transitions, 17 Years of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, ed. Margie West, Darwin: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, 2000: 74.
- Batchelor Press, Batchelor Institute 2001.
- According to Molnar (1999) the Magi (singular: Magus) originated from a caste of Zoroastrian priests from the Near East. Molnar states that during Roman time they were recognized as physician-astrologers who healed the sick, interpreted dreams, and cast horoscopes. Molnar claims that the word “magic” derives from “Magi”. Michael Molnar, The Story of Bethlehem: the Legacy of the Magi, Rutgers University Press, 1999.
- Note that words in Indigenous Australian languages, which have been unwritten languages until relatively recently, are subject to a number of different orthographies. Hence “Banumbirr” can be spelled in different ways (cf Banambirr elsewhere in this article).
- Cf the work of anthropologist Les Hyatt for more on this.
- According to Djon Mundine, Gali (Kallie) Yalkarriwuy “…also used to make highly colourful, embellished feathered ‘Morning Star’ poles. I have a memory of him doing a feathered cross too”. Email communication to Christine Nicholls, 2002.
- Of course, this does not only apply to Yolgnu people but to many, if not all, Indigenous.
- Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life and Land in Aboriginal Australian Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, 125.
- Bird Rose acknowledges in her text that she has developed this mode of analysis by building on earlier work by David Turner (1987: 95–106).
- Rose, Dingo, 125.
- Indeed, many Ellcho Islanders are more than merely nominally Christian.
- Howard Morphy, Aboriginal Art, London: Phaidon, 1998, 241.
- It is interesting to note that the Yolgnu people from the neighbouring community of Yirrkala were the forerunners of the contemporary Land Rights movement, creating a “Bark Petition” in 1963 and taking it to Canberra as part of their struggle to win back their land.
- The self-referential term for the local Aboriginal people. Note that this is the writer's explanation, not Morphy's.
- Morphy, Aboriginal Art, 242.
- Napaltjarri is a Pintupi and Pitjantjatjara woman, with family ties to these “countries” from her mother's and father's sides.
- Personal Communication, Linda Syddick Napaltjarri to Christine Nicholls, January 2000. English translation by Christine Nicholls.
- This suggests a familiar scene for those who have attended bush services on Aboriginal communities. As is the case elsewhere in Australia today, church attendance is often quite low on some settlements.
- Personal Communication to Christine Nicholls, 2000.
- ibid.
- See for example, James Hall, Hall's Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols in Art, London: John Murray, 1974, 123, for an account of the significance of flames in Renaissance Art.
- MAGNT, 2000:64.
- J.M. Arthur (at the Australian National Dictionary Centre) Aboriginal English: A Cultural Study, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996, 115–132.
- Of course, Christian Western art history also provides many examples of rupture with dominant past practice. For example, Rembrandt's oeuvre, including his oft-cited work The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1665, portrays emotions through the face, via a subtle play of light, marking a departure from a good deal of earlier Christian art.
- Personal communication via email from Darren Siwes to Christine Nicholls, 16 February 2003.
- Ken Gelder and Jane M. Jacobs, Uncanny Australia: Sacredness and Identity in a Postcolonial Nation, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1998, 30.
- Personal communication to Christine Nicholls; sources do not wish to be quoted.
- In a referee's report on an earlier version of this paper, 21 February 2003. I would like to acknowledge my gratitude for the pertinent, useful and productive comments made by this reviewer.
- Arnold Hauser, Mannerism (1965).
- See, for example, Harold Osborne, (ed,) The Oxford Companion to Art, Oxford University Press, 1970, 686–687.