Mungilarnu - Cycad Palm and Nuts (Yanyuwa) - Dinah Norman
Mungilarnu - Cycad Palm and Nuts (Yanyuwa) - Dinah Norman 10-22
Acrylic on Canvas 40 x 40 cm
Prestretched $440
Mungilarngu is the Yanyuwa name for Cycad Palm and Nuts.
The nuts are poisonous, but not to some animals, so pigs and lizards like to sleep in the shade and eat the ones that fall. This means that Mungilarngu is a good place to hunt.
Also in the old days the Yanyuwa people had to make damper out of the ground up seeds. Although they are poisonous, Yanyuwa people know how to prepare them so that they are able to be eaten.
This takes a long time - slicing and washing and drying in the sun over and over, then grinding them up to a flour that can be used for baking.
Dinah comes from a long line of Saltwater People and grew up fishing around the Sir Edward Pellow Islands. Some of these islands are the traditional homelands of Dinah's cultural group who moved between the islands and the mainland in dugout and bark canoes. Dinah was born in a dugout can during one such journey.
