Kakun (Gagun) - woven black-palm basket
Maker
Wilma Walker
(1929-2008)
Date1999
Object number00032389
(not entered)Kakan
NameBasket
MediumBlack-palm fibre
DimensionsOverall: 700 x 260 x 235 mm
Copyright© Wilma Walker
ClassificationsTools and equipment
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection
SignificanceBasking making in aboriginal societies has acquired values in today’s society that it did not originally have. Traditionally the baskets were useful artefacts or ceremonial gifts, the giving reinforcing relationships and religious beliefs. Today Wilma makes her baskets as educational aids for White Australia. Its importance lies in the personal story of Wilma Walker and how she escaped being one of the Stolen Generations. Wilma Walker’s baskets use traditional forms and styles of weaving to reflect on events from the artist’s own history. Walker taught herself to make these baskets by recalling childhood memories of watching women weaving them.
As a child, Walker was hidden inside baskets by family members to prevent government officials removing her from her family, as was the government policy at the time. Walker has told of her story:
I born up the (Mossman) Gorge on the riverbank in a gunya and police come along look for all the half-caste kids, but they hid me . . . my mother, we had to hide. In them baskets . . . and they hide me in that and give me (seed-pod rattles); lot, put in there, keep me quiet . . . when them police come say ‘No one here. No more kids. All gone . . . take ’em all away’.
Biography from QAG Learning http://learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/?p=3868
