Throughout civilisation, humans have dealt with death in a myriad of different ways. However, the importance placed on funerary traditions and rituals is a commonality found across continents and ages. Indigenous people of Australia have varying burial practices according to their social group and these funerary practices are deeply ingrained in their culture.
In Arnhem Land, these rituals involve a ceremony known in English as hollow log or bone coffin ceremonies, and in indigenous languages as Dupun, Lorrkon, Larajeje, Djalumbu, Mudukundja, or Mululu ceremonies. The artefacts created and used in these ceremonies have similar varying names but you may have heard them referred to as a lorrkon, larrakitj, memorial pole or burial pole.
The purpose of the ceremony is to ensure the safe arrival of the spirit into the ancestral realm, and to reinforce the community’s deep connection with their ancestors and the land. After a person dies, their body is painted with totemic designs and mourned, then it is taken to the deceased’s clan land and left to decompose. Some months or even years later, the nomadic clan will return to retrieve the bones and perform the second part of the ceremony. A tree trunk (usually a Stringybark) naturally hollowed out by termites will be cut down, cleaned and painted with designs. The bones of the deceased are placed inside the log and after the ceremony the log is placed in a hole in the ground upright and left to the elements to decay over time.
From the 1950s these hollow logs began to be crafted for artistic endeavours and were made specifically for exhibition and to be sold. Those made for display purposes were never used in funerary ceremonies nor did they at any time contain bones. Elders supported the creation of these burial poles as artworks as well as their inclusion in a number of important exhibitions. Most significant is The Aboriginal Memorial, conceived for the 1988 Sydney Biennale and since then housed on permanent display in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. The Memorial is an installation of 200 hollow log coffins created by artists from Central Arnhem Land and installed in a formation that mimics the course of the Glyde River estuary. The piece was curated by Djon Mundine OAM, who at the time was the art advisor in Ramingining, Central Arnhem Land.
The Memorial is considered one of Australia’s most historically significant artworks, created in response to the Bicentenary of Australia, marking 200 years of European settlement. Many indigenous Australians felt there was little to celebrate and the Bicentenary provoked widespread boycott and protest. Prompted by this political climate, Mundine said “I thought that absence – boycotting things – would not be noticed internationally. I thought we had to have a presence, but on our terms.”1. Mundine was inspired by a documentary by John Pilger called The Secret Country in which Pilger says “in a land strewn with cenotaphs which honour the memory of Australian servicemen who have died in almost every corner of the earth, not one stands for those [first Australians] who fought and fell in defence of their own country.”2. The Aboriginal Memorial became the nation’s first artistic memorial to indigenous Australians, representing final rites for all Aboriginal people who have been denied a proper burial.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
The Memorial originally intended to include ten artists in its creation, however, interest in the local community was so intense that 43 artists contributed to the project. These were both male and female artists from Ramingining and it’s surrounds in Central Arnhem Land, most of whom were professional bark painters, sculptors and weavers. One of these artists was Djardie Ashley (b.1950) who contributed five hollow logs to the artwork. Ashley worked for most of his life as a stockman all over the Northern Territory and Arnhem Land before focusing on painting. His work is characterised by sophisticated interlocking triangular designs, each representing the spearheads associated with the Wagilag Sisters’ story, an important Aboriginal creation myth. Djon Mundine commissioned a number of hollow logs for the project and selected 200 to represent one for each year of European settlement from 1788-1988.
One of Ashley’s hollow logs commissioned for the project, but not incorporated in the final artwork, will be included in The Art Collector auction in Sydney on the 2nd of December. It is remarkable to have such an important piece of Australian history available to the private market at auction and Leonard Joel is honoured to be offering such a significant work of art.
1. (Jon Mundine 2018, cited in “The Aboriginal Memorial”, National Gallery of Australia, 31 May 2022, accessed 8 October 2024, <https://nga.gov.au/stories-ideas/the-aboriginal-memorial/>)
2. (John Pilger, 1985, cited in “The Aboriginal Memorial – History”, National Gallery of Australia, accessed 8 October 2024 <https://nga.gov.au/first-nations/the-aboriginal-memorial/history/>)
By Madeleine Norton, Head of Decorative Arts & Art, Sydney
Top Image: Several hollow log coffins made by Aboriginal people inside Ian Potter Centre NGV Australia in Melbourne / Alamy
November 2024