Mitjunga, Malay Prau

Minimini Mamarika
Anindilyakwa people, Northern Territory
1904 – 1972

Mitjunga, Malay Prau
1948
earth pigments on stringybark (Eucalyptus tetrodonta)
Currently on display, Gallery 1
Place made
Umbakumba, Groote Eylandt, Northern Territory
Medium
earth pigments on stringybark (Eucalyptus tetrodonta)
Dimensions
43.7 x 86.0 cm (irreg)
Credit line
Gift of Charles P. Mountford 1960
Accession number
0.1917
Signature and date
Not signed. Not dated.
Media category
Painting
Collection area
Australian paintings - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Copyright
© Estate of Minimini Mamarika/Aboriginal Artists Agency

  • The visits of Makassan fishermen from South Sulawesi, Indonesia, to northern Australia greatly influenced the spiritual and material cultures of the coastal Aboriginal peoples. In Mitjunga, Malay Prau, the Anindilyakwa artist Minimini Mamarika has depicted a Makassan vessel associated with a place of cultural significance on Bickerton Island, near Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. It is said that the Makassans built two perahu (boats) there in ancestral times, one of which was subsequently transformed into a large rock marked by weathered holes. Mamarika has painted large circles on the hull of the vessel to suggest this unique geological feature.

    Charles Mountford, the ethnographer who collected the painting in 1948, supplied the title Malay Prau, reflecting the widespread English use of the term ‘Malay’ at that time and which was inaccurately applied to all Indonesian people. The crews of the Makassan fishing boats sailing to Marege, as they called northern Australia, consisted of a diverse mix of Makassan, Buginese and other Indonesian sailors.


    Dr James Bennett, Curator of Asian Art, 2003 – 21

  • [Book] AGSA 500.