Ali Miller Mungatopi, circa 1910-1968, PUKUMANI GRAVEYARD AND STARS
Ali Miller Mungatopi, circa 1910-1968, PUKUMANI GRAVEYARD AND STARSEstimate $12,000 – $18,000
natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
bears artist's name, size and title on the reverse and label with the story of Bima and Purukapali on the reverse
93 BY 50CM
Provenance:
Painted on Bathurst or Melville Islands in the early 1960s
Private collection
Cf. For related paintings see Adultery and Death - The Purukuparli Story, c.1965, and Homes of the Rainbow Snake - Maratji Myth, 1964, both in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, in M.A. O'Ferrall, Keepers of the Secrets: Aboriginal Art from Arnhem Land in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth: Art Gallery of Western Australia, 1990, p.36, pl.36, and p.37, pl.37 respectively, where the artist is referred to by one of his alternate names, Oruputuwaie; and The Crocodile Dance, 1960s, and The Soul-Catcher Spider Web, 1960s, in Louis Allen, Time Before Morning: Art and Myth of the Australian Aborigines, New York: Thomas V. Cromwell, 1975, pp.197, 204 respectively, (illus.).
The label on the reverse reads: 'Pukumani Ceremony: In the Tiwi Dreamtime nobody died, until the Tiwi goddess Wai-ai broke the law by making love with Tapara, the Moon Man her husband's brother, which caused the death of Jinaini, her baby son. Purakapali, father of the dead child, made a Pukamani ceremony for the dead son. This was the first death'.