Lot 144: DEAF TOMMY MUNGATOPI , CIRCA 1925-1985 PUKUMANI - FULL MOON Natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark

Bears artist's name, title, year 1960, size and a label on the reverse which reads in part: Natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark

89.5 by 42 cm

Painted on Melville Island in the 1960s
Private collection

Cf. For similar contemporaneous paintings by the artist in the collection of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, see Moon, Morning and Evening Stars, in Barnes, K., Kiripapurajuwi (Skills of Our Hands): Good Craftsman and Tiwi Art, Kathy Barnes, Darwin, 1999, illus. p.43; and Sun Shining on a Coral Reef, c.1970, in Crumlin, R. and A. Knight, Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, Dove Publications, Melbourne, 1995, illus. p.23, plate 4; the latter work also in Holmes, S. Le Brun, The Goddess and the Moon Man: The Sacred Art of the Tiwi Aborigines, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995, illus. p.118 under the title, Full Moon Reflected in the Sea in the Country of Purakapali.

The label on the reverse reads: "In the Pulinari - (creation time) nobody died until Wai-ai a Tiwi goddess heard Tapara, the Moon Man (her husband's brother) calling her to his embrace. Wyah, the old Sun Woman saw them go, after leaving Jinaini, her baby son, under a bush. In great anger the Sun Woman decided to kill the baby, to punish the mother for her adulterous way.

So, she shone her hottest rays on the baby, scorching and killing him. Purukapali, the father, found his dead son and made the first Pukamani ceremony for him. Then weeping and wailing, he walked into the sea and drowned himself."