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Yilpinji and the Visual Art of the Warlpiri and Kukatja peoples.

    In Australian Indigenous art, there are many interesting contrasts with Anglo-European traditions. As evidenced from the quote above, falling in love Warlpiri- or Kukatja-style is conceptualized very differently, in terms of the preferred metaphors used to describe the experience. For Anglo-Europeans, the heart is considered to be the seat of the emotions, of feelings, intuition, and love, whether that love is caritas or eros.

    While in English there are expressions like ‘broken-hearted’, ‘heart-breaking’, ‘heart-rending’, ‘heartache’, ‘open-hearted’, or ‘heart-throb’ used to describe a sexually attractive person, there exists an equally rich vocabulary pertaining to the emotions in the Warlpiri language and the Kukatja language,
that is centred on the stomach as the seat of human emotions. For example, ‘miyalu-kari’ (literally, other-stomached) describes a person in a state of being low in spirits, that is, a person who is depressed, or down-at-heart, as the English idiom goes; miyalu raa-pinyi (literally, to open up one’s stomach) means to make someone happy, as, for example, in the sentence: ‘Ngulaji miyaluju raa-pungu, wardinyarramanu-juku’ (‘He opened my stomach, he made me happy’). (Swartz, 2001:82).

    While the stomach is the principal seat of the emotions for the Warlpiri and the Kukatja, the throat (‘waninja’) is the primary location of sexual love and attraction. Amorous feelings, sexual yearning and attraction are all located, deeply felt and experienced in the throat (as opposed to the heart). Falling in love is described as ‘waninja-nyinami’ (emotion that is literally ‘throat-sitting’ or ‘throat-located’). When Warlpiri and Kukatja people fall in love, it gets them in the throat, not in the heart! For this reason special significance relates to necklaces and other body adornments worn about the neck, close to one’s throat, and they are often used in ceremonies pertaining to love. Often these are woven out of hairstring and used in yilpinji ceremonies.

    It is clear from the above that while the actual experience of sexual desire and falling in love may not differ greatly from culture to culture the metaphors used to talk ‘the language of love’ may be very different inter-culturally. In part the body of works in this exhibition has an educational focus insofar as it demonstrates an aspect of Indigenous life has been so little understood or discussed in the past. Misguidedly, some non-Indigenous academics have claimed that Indigenous languages lack a vocabulary to describe the emotions. In my view such attitudes are founded on ignorance which one hopes will at least partially be contested and challenged by this exhibition.

    These limited edition prints by Old Masters from the predominantly Kukatja settlement of Wirrimanu (Balgo Hills) in Western Australia as well as from Yuendumu and Lajamanu, Warlpiri settlements in the Northern Territory, have come about as the result of a unique cross-cultural collaboration. It has involved Indigenous artists, remote art centre staff and community organisations, a fine art print publishing house, a number of anthropologists who have specialist knowledge of these cultural groups, and two highly respected non-Indigenous printmakers.

    The Kukatja and the Warlpiri people have powerful traditions of love magic rituals and ceremonies, involving the singing of secret love songs as well as other forms of artistic expression. Sometimes this involves the painting of special designs onto their bodies or the production of 'love objects' to enact these ceremonies. Called 'Yilpinji' in the Warlpiri language, these ceremonies are enacted separately by men and women as a means of attracting the object of their sometimes adulterous or otherwise forbidden desire. In addition, many Dreaming narratives and associated ceremonies belonging to the Kukatja and Warlpiri peoples make powerful statements about the consequences of illicit or illegal love - love that is, that offends the strict rules of their kinship structures. For example, amongst Warlpiri and Kukatja people the 'love that dare not speak its name' may well be the love (or lust) of a son-in-law for his mother-in-law, or vice versa.

    Paintings of Yilpinji not only relate to moral and ethical behaviour and the transgressions that sometimes occur but, like other Dreaming narratives, they are attached to specific tracts of land. The often lengthy narratives associated with the Yilpinji paintings provide guidance about how (ideally) people should interrelate with one's fellow human beings as well as providing templates for their interactions with other species and with the natural world. Dreaming narratives relating to Love Magic ceremonies and themes have a range of manifestations and iterations, and can be expressed through a variety of art forms.

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