Deutscher and Hackett

This work is accompanied by a certificate from Maningrida Arts and Culture which states: ‘Yawkyawk is a word in the Kunwinjku/Kunwok language of Western Arnhem Land meaning ‘young woman’ and ‘young woman spirit being’. During the time of the creation of landscapes and plants and animals, these ancestral heroes in human form transmutated into their animal forms via a series of various significant events now recorded as oral mythologies. The creation ancestor Yawkyawk travelled the country in human form and changed into the form of Ngalkunburriyaymi as a result of various ancestral adventures.’