Deutscher and Hackett

Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, Yirrkala, Northern Territory
Private collection, Melbourne

This work is accompanied by a copy of a certificate of autheniticity from Buku-Larrngay Mulka Art Centre which states in part:

‘Once the final rites have been ritually administered to the deceased Yolnu the significant spiritual aspect of the deceased has already been delivered from the body to the ether via sacred viaducts (such as waterholes, trees and string etc) on clan land. However over a period of time it is the bones that are the only physical part of the body left so the journey of the spirit to the Ancestral heavens through the mother earth was symbolised on a hollow log (to contain the bones) imbued with sacred designs. The hollow log coffin was then left out in the bush and back to the elements - the final rite.’