National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | National Indigenous Art Triennial 07

Yawkyawk is a word in the Kunwinjku/kunwok language of Western Arnhem Land meaning ‘young woman’ and ‘young woman spirit being’. The different groups of Kunwinjku people (one of the Eastern dialect groups call themselves Kuninjku) each have Yawkyawk mythologies, which relate to specific locations in clan estates. These mythologies are represented in bark paintings and sculptures of Yawkyawk beings. There are also a few examples of rock art images of these beings. The female water spirits Yawkyawk or Ngalkunburriyaymi are perhaps the most enigmatic of mythological themes. Sometimes compared to the European notion of mermaids, they exist as spiritual beings living in freshwater streams and rock pools, particularly those in the stone country. The spirit Yawkyawk is usually described and depicted with the tail of a fish. This the Kuninjku people sometimes call the ngalberddjenj which literally means ‘the young woman who has a tail like a fish’. They have long hair, which is associated with trailing blooms of green