|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Flying Fox Story Place ‘Two young men broke the law of the elders,
– Arthur Koo-ekka Pambegan Jr Flying Fox Story Place represents a significant ancestral story belonging to the Winchanam ceremonial group, of which Arthur Koo-ekka Pambegan Jr is a senior member. It refers to a sacred totemic site, Kalben, and conveys customary law and beliefs related to the first stage of the Winchanam initiation ritual. Two young brothers broke a taboo when they sneaked out one morning during their initiation period and speared many flying foxes who were returning to their daytime nesting place among the mangrove trees. After cooking the flying foxes in a ground oven (kap-mari), the younger brother tried to encourage the older brother to hunt more flying foxes using bamboo spears (kek pith). One of the spears went high up into the air and landed in the Watson River, near the Small Archer River. As the brothers tried to swim across and retrieve it, a large rock suddenly began to appear from beneath the water. Meanwhile, the older men back at the camp uncovered the ground oven and found the flying foxes alive. The flying foxes began to fly around the two brothers and picked them up into the air. The brothers cried out for their parents, admitting that they had done wrong and accepting whatever their punishment may be. The flying foxes then took them into the sky — into the Milky Way — where two black dots exist as a reminder that this sacred law had been disobeyed. When people of the Small Archer River area die, their spirits return to the stone at this site. This sculpture represents the black flying fox (minh mal) and the small red flying fox (minh wuk) hanging upside down from their tree perch. Painted in the Winchanam ceremonial white-banded body paint, a number of the large black flying foxes are depicted as if seen from the front, their rust-red chests facing out. See also . . . Learn about artist Arthur
Koo-ekka Pambegan Jr. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
