Untitled – Barramundi Dreaming
Frame 210 x 80 cm
Natural Earth Pigments on Canvas
Code #:17117
SOLD
Provenance
Commissioned by Dr Peter Elliot from Neil McCloud Find Art, Vic
Thence by decent.
Private Collection, NSW
Story
“No fish anymore. Sad place. Queenie told him story” as described by Rover to Neil McLead in 1983
A beautiful barramundi made its home in the Tharram river, at Bandicoot Bar. The barramundi travelled up the Dunham River, past where the Worrworrum community is today.
A group of old women chased it, and it swam into a cave near the area now known as Barramundi Gap. As it entered the cave the women prepared to catch it with nets made from dried and rolled spinifex grass. The barramundi realised it was trapped in the shallow water of the cave entrance, and tried to escape by swimming to the other end. But the barramundi could not find a way out, and it returned to the entrance of the cave where the women were waiting with their nets.
The big barramundi swam towards the women and jumped over them, swimming through to Glen Hill where some of its scales scraped off on the rocks as it passed through. You can see the scales of Barramundi Gap near the Glen Hill community’s first gate – they are the white rocks on the top of the ranges, and they gleam bright white when the sun hits them in the late afternoon.
The barramundi jumped through a gap in the rocks, landing in the deep, clean water of Kowinji, or Cattle Creek. As the barramundi died it turned into a white stone, and its fat (a delicacy to the local people) became the pink diamonds, and its organs became the brown and yellow stones, and they sprinkled across the land.
Three of the old women who chased the barramundi to Cattle Creek peered into the water to look for it, and they too turned into stone, forever becoming part of the landscape. Today there are three stone formations overlooking the creek.
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