Credits

This article originally appeared in the museum’s quarterly magazine Signals number 116 (September-November 2016).  You can read more maritime stories on our Signals iPad app.

Notes

• Anthropologist Donald Thomson and mission superintendent Wilbur Chaseling collected sculptures from Yirrkala during the 1930s. Thomson expert, Lindy Allen of Museum Victoria, is certain that it would not have been Donald Thomson who captured this film.
• The museum wishes to thank the Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts Centre for their permission to use and share images and cultural descriptions for publication.

Sources

• Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts centre.
• NATSIAA 2010 press coverage.
• Judith Ryan, Senior Curator, Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Victoria, ‘Lipundja and Unknown Yolngu Artist: Mokuy Figures’.