In Marrakulu ceremony we dance towards a spear that represents the rock Bamurrungu, surrounded by wawurritjpal that we call marparrarr, or milk fish, somewhat like a large mullet. It’s a bigger name for another fish, and how it swims too, along the same pathway. The more we dance, the more we get strength, showing the culture and the law of how the fish circulate. Fish are similar to human beings, big travels, how far we see, that’s how far we travel, beyond that horizon.
Now, today, we are using the same symbol in dancing; and the same symbol, in the same way of how fish circulate, we are dancing to represent how the mullet travel to look for their destiny. It never stays still, it moves. It’s like you and me, when we go through the internet, we look for our destinies, to find our great-great-great grandfathers and grandmothers or we go to the museum and we look around for them.
It’s not easy to explain; when fish find their destiny, that’s where he lays down his spirit, like when we die, us like a fish, our spirit goes down, and dives down into our country, into our land.
Mr Wanambi ‘The Inside World’ (Nevada Museum of Art) 2019.
