The Aborigines of the Dhuwa Moiety (North East Arnhem Land) consider the Djanggawul to be the most important of their ancestral beings, and this group consisted of Djanggawul and his two sisters, Madalaig and Bitjiwurrurru. In the Time before the Morning, the Djanggawul came in a canoe from behind the sunrise, and landed at Jalangbara (Port Bradshaw). With them they brought the sacred Rangga, with which they “made” the country, and also created the people of the Dhuwa Moiety. When the Djanggawul beings landed, the first living creature they saw was the Goanna Djanda, who, because of this, became sacred. They admired Djanda and the parallel sand hills, and when Djanggawul saw the lines of soft sand that poured down from under the feet of the goanna, he declared this would be the mark of his people and the Dhuwa design forever. In this sacred design the vertical cross-hatchings are the streamlets of sand, and the vertical yellow bars the mark of Djanda’s tail.The horizontal hatching and lines represent the sun glinting on the tops of the waves as Djanggawul looked out across the Arafura Sea from the tops of dunes.
Buku-Larrngay Mulka Art Centre, Yirrkala, Northern Territory The Peter and Renate Nahum Collection of Aboriginal Art, London