Aaron Kingangu McTaggart 1981
Ngen’giwumirri. Malfiyin
Merrepen Arts
Nauiyu, Daly River,
Fitzmaurice region,
Northern Territory
Ayiwisi
Dragonflies
Etching on paper
”The people of the Daly River area know that the dry season has begun when they see thousands of dragonflies in the air. Dragonflies are also a signal to the people that it is time for fishing, as this is a seasonal insect in our culture signalling the coming of the barramundi.”
Crocodile Skin
Etching on paper
”This is a print of the back of a Crocodile. It shows how the Crocodile’s skin changes colour as it moves out of the water and it shows the ripples in the water as the crock swims through the water. The crocodile is also my child spirit.”
The Dreamtime cosmology of the Aborigines describes how sacred and powerful ancestral beings created the earth, animals, and plants. In this creative process of creation a part of their essence and power became incorporated into the earth. The ancestors are as such present in the landforms, animals, and items. Thus, when a woman partakes in hunting, fishing and food gathering and something unusual occurs, this can be the moment when an ancestral spirits enters her and becomes the child spirit to her unborn child.
An unexpected incident marks the knowledge of a pregnancy and the relation between the child and the place it happened. After birth this relation is proved by finding physical signs on the child’s body or by observing their behaviour. The relation to once child spirit is personal and lifelong. In the case of Kingangu it was a crocodile that was acting strangely, repeatedly coming to the water’s edge where they were camping seemingly fearless for man. Eventually his father shot the animal in the head.
When Kingangu was born his fontanel was unusually large, explained by the fact that he was that crocodile that got his head shot. Then the crocodile became his child spirit.
