Dugong and Turtle Hunting

Artist Nancy McDinny (1957)

Datebefore 2006

Object number00042366

NamePainting

MediumAcrylic on canvas

Dimensions1130 x 1440 x 25 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionAcrylic on canvas by Nancy McDinny, a Yanyuwa and Garrwa woman from Borroloola. The painting is titled 'Dugong and Turtle Hunting' and shows hunters in canoes surrounded by the sea and turtles and dugong. When Nancy was a child, her father Diny McDinny and her uncles would go out with others hunting for dugong and turtles at the mouth of the Macarthur River. In this painting, Nancy has depicted the men hunting dugong and turtles in the tradition manner. Nancy McDinny is a Garawa traditional owner. Her language group is Garawa.HistoryNancy McDinny hails from Borroloola, south west of the Gulf of Carpentaria. This is a wild country where crocodile infested rivers tumble through long and treacherous plains of deep sand and coastal scrub before making their way to the sea. For European setters, this country represented Australia's last great frontier. To its Indigenous inhabitants, however, these lands had been the physical and spiritual home for more than 40,000 years. With the opening in the 1870s of the Coast Track - one of Australia's largest and most profitable stock routes these two cultures were thrown suddenly and often violently together. When Nancy was a child, her father and her uncles would go out from Borroloola (Northern Territory) with the other men hunting for dugong and turtles at the mouth of the McArthur River. In this painting, Nancy has depicted the hunt in the traditional manner. This is a traditional island piece sung in Yanyuwa; it was composed by Yanyuwa women; "Marnajalhi maraman jalu-arrkananji walya nungkarnu-rawungka Here it is the sea grass country they are harpooning the dugong and sea turtle over the reef country." SignificanceIn her paintings, Nancy McDinny recalls the stories of the Gulf frontier as told to her by her father Dinny McDinny and her grandfather Jim Ross. These are the stories of the traditional practices and the impact of pastoral capital on the Garrwa and Yanyuwa people. The accuracy and attention to detail in Nancy's depictions presents a profound vindication of oral-sources and a significant visual account, from an Indigenous perspective, of the arrival of Europeans to Borroloola.