Mawalan Marika

[4] In addition to being an important asset to many anthropologists, including Charles P. Mountford and Ronald Berndt, he was one of the most prominent political activists of his time.

[5][6] Marika was one of the first artists to break from tradition and teach his daughters (i.e. women) how to paint the sacred madayin clan designs.

[7] Marika advocated for the teaching of Yolŋu culture to the general Australian population, and negotiated the foundation of a Methodist mission at Yirrkala in 1935.

In his work, Turtle Dreaming, Marika demonstrates the connection between the two ancestral figures through long pointed shapes representing the water spouts created by the Thunderman and rocks containing Mururruma's spirit.

[3] One of the innovations for which Marika is credited is the use of episodic or panel style bark paintings and breaking away from the use of rarrk by using dotting techniques and more figural elements.

[1] In 1959, the deputy director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Tony Tuckson, traveled to Yirrkala to commission large scale works for the collection for the aesthetic rather than the ethnographic value.

“The String Figures of Yirrkala: Examination of a Legacy.” Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, edited by Martin Thomas and Margo Neale, ANU Press, 2011, pp.

[13] Describes the legacy of string-figure making in Yirrkala and the role of Mawalan Marika, his brother Mathaman, and his son Wandjuk, beginning page 201.