Tingari Cycle - Walter Jangala Brown 2546/21ny
Tingari Cycle - Walter Jangala Brown 2546/21ny
Acrylic on Belgian Linen, 122 x 122cm
Unstretched $3850
Stretched $4055
This painting depicts a portion of the Tingari Cycle, a very important set of Dreaming narratives from the Western Desert Region. It consists of three main Dreaming tracks and tells the story of ancient creation ancestors who travel across the country taking different forms, some human some animal. They were generally initiated men with their novices.
The cycle tells the story of a group of ancient creation ancestors, the Tingari, who travelled across the country. The TIngari took different forms, some human and some animal. Humans were typically initiated men accompanied by ‘punyunyu’ (novices, uninitiated men). The men were sometimes accompanied by extremely powerful initiated women (called variously the ‘Kungka Tjuta’, ‘Minyma Tjuta’, or ‘Kanaputa’). Like the initiated men, these initiated women were accompanied by uninitiated women to whom they provided a ritual education. Animals featured in the Tingari cycle include the dingo, emu, kingfisher, and western quoll, amongst others.
As the Tingari travelled over vast areas of the country, they held initiations and other ceremonies, caused or encountered raging bushfires, hunted game, found and cooked bush tucker, fought and killed one another, disposed of the dead or brought them back to life, interacted with totemic ancestors, copulated illicitly, made and used sacred objects, flew through the air, and died in hailstorms.
In the course of these adventures, they either created or became the physical features of the sites they visited, forming rocky outcrops, waterholes, trees, salt lakes, ochre deposits and so on.
These sites which are now regarded as sacred by their descendants, today’s custodians of these places. The Tingari also laid down social custom and law as it should be practised today. Their journeys form the basis of sacred and secret men’s and women’s laws. Public paintings of the Tingari cycle typically only show the unrestricted portions of these stories.
