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Mowaljarlai, David und Malnic, Jutta: Yorro Yorro everything standing up alive. Rock Paintings and Stories from the Australian Kimberley, 2. Aufl., Magabala Books, Broome 2001, ISBN 1875641726

Table of Contents        ¦         Cover Text        ¦         Book Review

Table of Contents

Cultural Sensitivity -v-

Foreword -ix-

Publisher’s Note -xii-

Preface -xiii-

Intrudiction -xvi-

Map -xvii-

Part 1: A Journey to the Stars

1 Start -1-

2 Towards the Little Lights -5-

3 Snakes -14-

4 Rambud -19-

5 Turnback -25-

6 Sydney -33-

7 Derby -41-

8 The Wunnan -44-

9 Kalumburu -53-

10 The Shield around the Light -59-

11 Angguban – the Cloud Dreaming -62-

12 Mowaela – the Duelling Place -67-

13 Waanangga - the Sugarbag Site -71-

14 A Hunting Diversion -77-

15 Alwayu - Dreaming of Daylight and Darkness -79-

16 The Old Pelican -89-

17 The Track Wandjinas -100-

Part 2: Mowaljarlai

18 Young Days -104-

19 Mission Training -115-

20 War -120-

21 Us Marine -122-

22 Great Changes -125-

Part 3: Lalai

23 Creation in the Kimberley -132-

24 The Earth Serpent -145-

25 Law -150-

26 Dulugun -154-

- With Argula to Dulugun -162-

- Another Argula Story -163-

- Getting Locked Up in the Underworld -164-

- You Can’t Escape Your Life Record -165-

27 Songs -166-

- How the Cocodile Brought Fire -166-

- Wunggu Wodarre Yallinballi Ngagnari -169-

- The Seaplane that Fell Down -173-

28 Healing -176-

29 The Flood -180-

30 Bandaiyan - Corpus Australis -190-

31 A Wandjina Died -195-

32 Guyan Guyan -200-

Appendices

1 Features of a Wandjina -212-

2 Waanangga, Sugarbag -213-

3 Time Periods -214-

4 Bandaiyan, Corpus Australis -214-

Glossary of Ngarinyin, Worrorra, Wunambal -215-

Glossary of other words -223-

Index of Illustrations -224-

General Index -226-

Cover Text

In a remarkable collaboration, Aboriginal elder Mowaljarlai and photographer Jutta Malnic rekindle a story that reaches back 60,000 years, constituting the oldest collective memory of humankind. Illustrated with more than 120 colour plates, this work tells of the Wandjina creation spirits and their “crossing over“ into ancestor entities (personae) and eventually into human form. Yorro Yorro signifies the continual creation and renewal of nature. Translated, it means “everything standing up alive”. The book is a testament to the extraordinary cumulative knowledge of the Wandjina people of the Kimberley, the remote northwest region of Australia, a place of transcendentally beautiful wilderness and rich human history. It begins with the authors’ journey to Lejmorro - one of the least accessible but most important sites of the early Wandjina rock paintings. Recognised by his people as an articulate receiver and transmitter of the ancient and ongoing story, Mowaljarlai elucidates the meaning of the paintings and their pictorial tales, augmented by Malnic’s awe-inspiring photographs of the country, its people and the original rock paintings. The authors are joined by four other elders in an elaboration of a history pre-dating the ice-age and tracing their ancestry to the beginning of human existence. Mowaljarlai also tells of his upbringing in the family network of traditional bush existence. Superb archival photographs of young Mowaljarlai with his family and those who gave him his knowledge and laws, taken in the 1930s by Andreas Lommel, add strength and poignancy to the narrative of the book, allowing the reader intimate glimpses into the life of the people of the Wandjina. From the bush, we follow the author through his life and education in a Christian mission. In the process of entering the modern world, he turned to his own culture for sustenance, working for its preservation and representing its great store of knowledge to the world. In this new edtion, an intriguing and revealing chapter has been added in the form of a conversation about the famed Bradshaw rock paintings, recorded not long before the close of Mowaljarlai’s life. From this it emerges that, contrary to some controversial views and interpretations, Aboriginal people of the region did in fact have a place in their history and culture for these graceful and enigmatic images, and a name for them - the Guyan Guyan.