Dhomala Dhäwu: Makassan Sail Stories — 4 September to 13 November 2021

Dhomala Dhäwu: Makassan Sail Stories
Exhibition runs: 21 October to 13 November 2021
Online (COVID) preview: 4 September to 21 October 2021
Artists: Ipeh Nur & Margaret Rarru Garrawurra
Presented in collaboration with Milingimbi Art and Culture
Part II of By the Stars, Wind & Ocean Currents

View the Dhomala Dhäwu E-Publication > Download as pdf

The exhibition Dhomala Dhäwu/Makassan Sail Story crosses the centuries of contact between sea-farers and traders of the great Indonesian archipelago and saltwater peoples of northern Aboriginal nations. Dhomala is a Djambarpuyngu word adapted from the Makassan word Dumala—both of which have the dual meaning of sail and cloth. Drawing on research describing Makassan voyages, the exhibition presents a poetic dimension of cultural contact between great civilisations that left a tradition of respect. The focus is on maritime heritage, specifically wooden boat building and sea-farers’ customs. Through the intimate and reflective work of weaving and drawing, artists Ipeh Nur and Margaret Rarru revisit ancient practices, rock paintings for example show mandir (conical baskets) in use up to 20,000 years ago, using startling contemporary installation tropes.

Ipeh Nur’s sketch-book scale drawings show the rituals of the Makassan and Bugis boatbuilders (once two rival but interlocked kingdoms) and find a way to unlock the complexity of historical narration. For the project Rhizomatic Archipelago (Cemeti Institute for Art and Society with the Biennale Equator in Yogyakarta, 2019), Ipeh participated in the Kelana Laut Residence Program at Pambusuang, a fishing village in West Sulawesi, and had the opportunity to see the process of padewakang boat building in Tana Beru, South Sulawesi. There she observed, photographed and sketched the building of Nur Al Marege—a wooden perahu padewakang which ultimately sailed to Yirrkala in north east Arnhem Land.

Ipeh observed that, ‘Various types of rites and traditions are passed down from generation to generation, including rites in treating the products or technologies they create, in this case houses and boats. The house and the boat are believed to have a spirit or soul symbolised by posiq (navel or belly button).’ Remarkably, boatbuilders do not use any plans, as the shell construction doesn’t conform to a ‘design type’. The building is itself an artwork.  Ipeh’s drawings and etchings mix ethnography, historic narrative and personal observation into strange and wonderous mise-en-scène for an imaginary theatre.

Margaret Rarru’s sculptural weavings entwine natural dyes and fibre techniques including the spectacular craft of sail-making, each process requiring deep understanding of aesthetics, ecology and culture. Rarru is one of few people who continues the labour-intensive work of making dhomola from twined pandanus and hand spun kurrajong fibres. Dhomala ga lipa-lipa (woven sails and dugout canoes) are two of many technologies, traditions and skills that were passed between Yolngu and Makassans and remain in the memories and everyday lives of Rarru and her extended family.

A perahu carried several lipa-lipa (or lepa-lepa), each seating 6 to 10 people. Rig for perahu and lipa-lipa was rattan with coir lanyards—the dhomola braced by a wooden or bamboo mast with two stays to create a distinctive triangular rig to roll and unroll the dhomola and give agility on water. In Yolngu life, lipa-lipa made with a steel axe from a single piece of wood displaced bark canoes and enabled longer voyages. In 1935, anthropologist Donald Thompson observed that a lipa-lipa specialist was paid in a ceremonial exchange (as distinguished from economic buying) that confirmed the value of the maker’s craft.

In 2020, approaching her 80th year, Rarru now works mostly at Langarra on her mother’s country, an island in the Crocodile Islands. Rarru has previously painted scenes to capture moments of her life growing up between the islands of Galiwin’ku, Langarra and Yurrwi— where Milingimbi art centre is located and the location of an archaeological site for processing trepang. In 2007 she won the prestigious best bark painting award in the National Aboriginal and Islander Art Award, for a work using the austere geometry of Liyagawumirr clan designs, her work steering a bold new course.

Ipeh Nur, Tubuh dan perjalanan series, 2020, pen on paper, dimensions variable. Photo: Silversalt Photography

Margaret Rarru, Dhomala, 2021, Pandanus (Pandanus Spiralis), Kurrajong (Brachychiton Populneus), bush dyes, 245 x 203 cm. Photo: Silversalt Photography

(Left) Margaret Rurru, installation. (Right) Margaret Rarru, Mindirr and Mol Mindirr baskets, 2021 Pandanus (Pandanus Spiralis), Kurrajong (Brachychiton Populneus), dimensions variable. Photo: Silversalt Photography

Margaret Rarru, Mindirr and Mol Mindirr baskets, 2021 Pandanus (Pandanus Spiralis), Kurrajong (Brachychiton Populneus), dimensions variable. Photo: Silversalt Photography

Margaret Rarru, Dhomala, (detail), 2021, Pandanus (Pandanus Spiralis), Kurrajong (Brachychiton Populneus), bush dyes, 245 x 203 cm.Photo: Silversalt Photography

For Dhomala Dhäwu/Makassan Sail Story, Rarru created a series of drawings inspired by the woven dhomala and lipa-lipa. These follow her brilliant showing of dhomala and mindirr made for APT 2019 at Queensland Art Gallery. These ink drawings are her first on paper and speak to the enduring connection between Makassar and Arnhem Land and the Yolngu value of relationships; the dhomala carry Liyagawumirr clan designs. Hence, Rarru’s weavings and drawings are profoundly experimental combinations of the wisdom of history and of those who came before her, opening new ways of working interculturally. In some measure they respond to her careful study of Ipeh’s drawings (exchanged digitally, as the Covid-19 times prohibited a residency).

Rarru states that, ‘making baskets makes me happy,’ —a modesty that denies her work’s sophistication. Rarru adds the caution, ‘…if you know how to make string.’ Mindirr are ancient basket forms carried by the ancestral Djan’kawu sisters on their creation journeys across Arnhem Land. Rarru tightly weaves pandanus leaf strands into monochrome or black fields of subtly graded shades. Her twined strands can create a matt, textured surface, highlighted with slight optical irregularities due to changes in the spacing and tension of the weave—particularly startling when she uses mol (black) dye, a recipe she refined and whose use she strictly authorises.

Trepang fishers used mangrove bark (Rhizophora) found along the shallow coasts (or bakau used as a reddish dye in batik) or root bark from the cheese fruit tree to make red dye (trepang here are a chalky colour)—a useful preservative as the return voyage took approximately 30 to 40 days. Today’s collectors use many locally sourced plants for dying balgurr (bark for making string). Dyes today are likely to be tuber and fruit from shrubs from the genus Haemodorum and/or Pogonolobus Reticulatus, with black sourced from stringy bark or Eucalyptus tetrodontus, as ethno-botanist Glenn Wightman has explained.

The artists’ cross cultures and generations but their works meet on a symbolic perahu padewakang, the type of boat used in the trepang trade: a site of power issues but also a site of exchanges and crossovers on the ‘Malay Road’, as described in 1803 by British navigator Matthew Flinders. They voyaged with the monsoon winds to the coasts of the Kimberley (Kayu Jawa) and Arnhem Land, known as ‘Marege’. Other voyagers such as the Bajo (Bajau), visited even earlier.

The sojourners and Yolngu developed social and economic ties, though the extent of these relationships is debated by pre-historians, rock art experts, ethnographers and cultural historians. ‘Makassan’, or a mixture of the trade languages of Malay, Bugis and Makassarese, was once a lingua franca to interact with outsiders and Yolngu dialects today contain many hundreds of these words. The growing set of open questions includes some Yolngu religious ceremonies and songs strongly inflected with Makassan narratives, dates and pre-Makassan (Baijini people) contact. The fleets departed after the 1906–07 season as increasing tariffs and competition with Europeans, followed by the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (the White Australia policy) made contact increasingly difficult. In the wake of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act 1976, Indigenous ownership was re-asserted over languages, histories and estates.

Trepang collection is viewed by Yolngu people as a paradigm of co-operative race relations, rather than colonial or conflicting relations. Muslim organisations in Australia also recognise the long genealogy of contact: for example the recent commemorative project Before 1770, initiated by a Sydney youth centre, was the second re-construction of a perahu padewakang and voyage from South Sulawesi to Marege. Relations between European and Japanese trepangers and pearlers were on the other hand, deeply troubled. Most flouted the territorial boundary and subsequently ignored the declaration of an ‘inviolate’ Aboriginal Reservation in Arnhem Land.

As symbolic counter-colonial narratives, two perahu have sailed from Makassar to Yirrkala at the beginning of the December to January monsoon (in 1988 and 2020 respectively). The elegant Hati Marege can be viewed in Darwin in MAGNT’s Maritime Collection—the voyage and vessel a Bicentennial commission initiated by historian Peter Spillett. The second prahu, Nur Al Marege (in Arabic, Nur Al means ‘light of’ and Marege, ‘land of the black people’), took the same wind and ocean current driven route. Both times the seafarers received a traditional welcome. These magnificent trading vessels that are now UNESCO world cultural heritage join wayang-kulit, the wavy kris dagger and batik from the archipelago. A lipa-lipa and dhomola (c. 1984) is now a centrepiece in the new Chau Chak Wing Museum at Sydney University.(1)

Coastal fishing continues in earnest in salt-water communities in South Sulawesi and environs despite decreasing catch sizes. The art of wooden boatbuilding continues.

Footnotes
1. Commissioned by Djon Mundine in 1984. Artists: David Malangi with Margaret Gundjimirri, Judy Baypunala, Elsie Ganbada and Katy Bopirri.

Margaret Rarru, Lipalipa,
 56.5 x 38 cm. Cat no 99-21
.

Margaret Rarru, Dhomala,
 56.5 x 38 cm. Cat no 105-21


Margaret Rarru, Untitled,
 56.5 x 38 cm. Cat no 108-21

Margaret Rarru, Garrawurra bathi, 2021. Weaving,
 28.5 cm. Cat no 14-21
.

Margaret Rarru, Dhomola Weaving,
 245 x 203 cm. Cat no 112-21
.

Interview with Margaret Rarru Garrawurra, November 2020.
Film stills and studio photographs taken at Langarra homeland, Arnhem Land. Film Translation and subtitles: Salome Harris and Jack Minmiḏi. Courtesy Milingimbi Art and Culture

Ipeh Nur, Perjalanan (Tubuh dan perjalanan series), 2020, pen on paper, 42m x 29.7 cm (2 panels) (2nd panel)

Apart from rites and traditions as my main focus, observing the problems that occured there was also my concern—like the construction of a concrete embankment along the coast of Mandar Bay. A construction that does not consider the ecological aspects and will eventually kill the marine culture itself. The face of Mandar, who is known as an accomplished sailor, is not the same anymore. The view of the boats that are usually anchored and lined along the shoreline is no longer there, because of the concrete embankment. Fishermen find it difficult to park their boats and only small boats can be lifted ashore. This in turn causes the manufacturing of boats to decrease. — Ipeh Nur

About Ipeh Nur’s ‘Soul series’
Ipeh Nur, Jiwa series, 2019, oil on galvalume, dimensions variable

My meetings with fishermen, fishing families, boat builders, and several shamans found one thing in common—namely their treatment of the works/technology they made. They treated the houses and boats they created just like other creatures: living and possessing a ‘spirit’ or soul. This was symbolised by the navel, as well as the bond with its owner. The navel is a form of meeting between technology and belief/religion. It becomes an important instrument for coastal communities, especially fishing families.

Ipeh Nur, Pertemuan (Tubuh dan perjalanan series), 2020, pen on paper, 50 x 35 cm

This drawing describes the reaquaintance of Makassar sailors with the Yolngu tribe on a boat. Years before James Cook claimed to have discovered the Australian continent, Makassar sailors had interacted with Aboriginal people. They had a close relationship in the past. Sailors used padawakang boats to trade—Makassar sailors buying teripang (sea cucumbers) from the residents in exchange for rice, iron and metal tools, pottery and more. — Ipeh Nur

Ipeh Nur, Tubuh (Tubuh dan perjalanan series), 2020, pen, charcoal pencil, ink on paper, 50cm x 35 cm

The initial process of building a boat begins with making the bottom keel. The keel becomes a vital part—the backbone as well as the spirit of the boat. The lasso enters into the tenong—just as the penis meets the vagina, the phallus meets the yoni, the body meets the body. And the burning of incense is where the spirit (soul) is blown. Like the concept of creation in Java or Sangkaning dumadi—“tumbu oleh tutup”—the union of the phallus and yoni create a form of harmonization, which is manifested not only in various creations but also in “laku” (way of life).

There are several rituals before the connection. I was asked to be the substitute for the boat owner. After prayer is paid, it is determined where the center or navel of the boat is, and it is then cut to be used as a connection (tenong-lasso). I ate a few pieces of keel, as a form of bond and hope to bring sustenance. I ran to throw some of the pieces into the sea in hopes of a fast sailing. Apart from looking at the sacredness, it is important to see the technology in this keel connection—they don’t use glue as an adhesive. Only eucalyptus bark is used to to prevent leakage and wooden pegs to connect the boards. — Ipeh Nur

Ipeh Nur, Jiwa series, 2019, oil on galvalume, dimensions variable

A boat shaman will perform the ritual ‘mapossiq’ or the giving of a navel in the process of crafting a boat or ship. Marked with a small piece of wood under the sail (in Sandeq boats), or at the connection of the keel (for ships with a keel), it is inserted with a kind of ‘sperm’ containing gold needles, oil, well moss and rice crust, which became a symbol of hope for safety and sustenance

Ipeh Nur, Jiwa series, 2019, oil on galvalume, dimensions variable

When I entered the hull of the boat, it was like seeing a human body. The tusks were lined up like the ribs of a human, with the keel of the boat like the tailbone. According to Horst Liebner, a maritime anthropologist, in the construction of the Konjo tribe boats, the hull boards were arranged first rather than the boat frame, as is the custom of European boats. The ancestors of the Bugis-Makassar people also mastered the knowledge and technology of wood processing. Boat boards are not forced to bend, but are made to follow the shape of the wood. Generally, the boards are made of whole wood which is cut into pieces according to the place needed in the construction of the boat

Makassan prahus sailed “Malay Roads” before the European “discovery” of Australia. At the onset of the northwest winds (December) fleets left Makassar in South Sulawesi and made landfall on Marege to reach trepang harvest sites the along the northern Australian coastline. By 1650 this coast was reliably charted and prahus with multi-cultural crews (Makassarese, Butonese, Bugis, Bajau, Madurese and ‘Koepangers’ from Timor) sailed its length — all lands and waters owned and occupied by Aboriginal nations. This ABC TV news footage honours the cultural and economic exchange. 3 February 2020..

About & Acknowledgements

Milingimbi Art Centre is located on Yurrwi (Milingimbi), a small island just off the Arnhem Land coast about 400km east of Darwin. The community has a long tradition of producing high quality bark paintings, carvings and weavings which are made with natural materials and ochre paints. The diverse culture of the community has been influenced by long term contact with traders from Sulawesi and the coming together of over twelve clans from both the mainland and ‘salt water’ country of the Crocodile Islands.

The Cross Art Projects wishes to thank the artists and Rosita Holmes from Milingimbi Arts and Culture. Salome Harris, Jack Minmidi and Edwina Murphy for video translations and sub-titles and video editing by Kim Scott at Moon Cube Design. Australia Indonesia Art Forum and Greg Doyle who drew my attention to Ipeh Nur’s work. Maritime advisors Paul Clark at MAGNT and John Waigt. Matt Poll at CCW Museum. At The Cross Art Projects: Belle Blau, Simon Blau, Susan Gilligan and Phillip Boulten. – Jo Holder

Ipeh Nur wishes to thank Kampung Pambusuang (West Sulawesi) and Tana Beru (South Sulawesi), Muhammad Ridwan Alimuddin, Horst H. Liebner, Biennale Jogja and Cemeti – Institute for Art and Society.