15 AM 5558/08
Nellie Nangala Women's Ceremony 2007
Acrylic on linen 610 x 915mm $1200
Nellie has painted two women performing a ceremony at Ipili. Aboriginal people believe the Creation or
Dreamtime is the beginning of 'knowledge', when the laws of existence were put together. It is also the
beginning of time when supernatural Ancestral beings were born out of their own eternity. It is said the
Ancestors moved across the barren surface of the world, hunting and fighting. They changed the form of the
land creating mountains, rivers, trees, plains, water holes and sand hills. The Ancestors were honoured by
Aboriginal people in corroborees performed at sacred sites where the spirit of the Ancestors had become part of
the landscape, or turned into entities such as rocks (central circles) or trees. At the corroborees the women (U
shapes) dance and paint their breast, chest and forearms in ceremonial body designs. They also decorate their
bosies with feathers and wear hair belts as depicted in this painting either side of the central circle. They may
also dance with ceremonial objects such as nulla nullas (a fighting stick also used for ceremonial dancing).