89 AM 1206/03
Jimmy Namarnyilk Ubar Ceremony 1999
Natural ochres on Arches paper, framed 500 x 1020mm, 690 x 1710mm $3300
In the Dreamtime the great hunter and magician Yirrbardbard took a young girl from a neighbouring clan as his
wife, but she refused to live with him and kept running back to her mother who protected her. In anger and
frustration Yirrbardbard decided to kill both his wife and her mother. He decided to do this with the aid of magic in
an attempt to conceal his identity from their kin folk. He went into a cave in the escarpments of Gunbalanya and
drew a large figure of his wife on the wall, with a smaller one of her mother alongside. A snake in the act of
striking was depicted at the foot of each woman. Then Yirrbardbard made a fire and waved some of the women's
possessions through the smoke, calling out that a snake would kill them.
From that time on Yirrbardbard stalked the women when they went out hunting. Finally one day he knew that the
time was right to kill them. He changed into a snake and slid in front of them into a hollow log, where he made
scratching noises to simulate a goanna or bandicoot, The two women ran to either end of the log and each inserted
a hand in it to grab the creature inside. Yirrbardbard turned and bit each woman on the hand, causing them to die
instantly. He then crawled out of the log and changed back into a man and began to wander over the country,
planning a new ceremony to commemorate his actions.
In the actual Ubar ceremony an inner circle of men start the dancing, and an outer circle of dancers perform the
last sequences; here both groups dance simultaneously to the sounds of a didgeridoo player and a clapsticks man.
During the ceremony the sound of the stick tapping the drum would simulate the scratching of a goanna or
bandicoot in a hollow log, just as Yirrbardbard had done earlier in the form of a snake. The ceremony was to begin
at the end of the dry season.
The Ubar ceremony is performed mainly by men; although a group of young girls dance in one section of it, they
are not allowed to view any of the other dances. Older women make a main camp away from the ceremonial
ground and prepare food for everyone. They send old men up to the dance ground with the food when it is cooked.

Young male novitiates stay with the older women until it is time for them to go to the ceremony. The women
then farewell them, weeping and trying to hold them back. The women's concern is that Ngalyod the Rainbow
Serpent, a major figure in the ceremony, might become angry and hurt their sons. When the sounds of singing and
ritual callings float down to the women's camp, they clap their hands repeatedly over their mouths and callout
'gaydba gaydba', at the same time thrusting their digging sticks into the ground and stamping their feet in their own
sacred dance. At the end of the ceremony the novitiates are immersed in water and sent back to their mothers,
who rush out to greet them with loud cries of "Thanks thanks" - they have emerged from their ordeal unharmed.