JoyBorruwa

Back in the Creation time, Warrnyu (Flying Foxes) once lived, like men, in caves. One day Djanyarr (The Dog), an ancestral being in the form of a man, came along, looking around for a place to live and heard a Flying Fox screaming. He went into the cave and into the sacred hole, frightening all the Flying Fox away. The Dog made three streams and the water went inside the cave. Two of these streams are good drinking water. In the middle is sacred water. No-one drinks from the middle of the stream. Children, men, women, young boys or girls are not allowed to drink from the middle of the stream, for if they drink from there, they will go grey too early.

Joy is one of eight children from one of the first recognised female painters in Ramingining. She has recently started to come and paint at the art centre, however she watched and practiced with her Mum since she was a young child.

Language: Djambarrpuyungu

The Flying Fox made himself into a young man... that’s what Aboriginal people do today. They have ceremonies and dances to make the young boys into men. Dhapi (initiation ceremony) happen today because the Warrnyu (Flying Fox) people performed them a long time ago before the Yolgnu people.

The Dog travelled west across the Arafura Swamp. From there he travelled north to near Ramingining. There he met a female Dog. They both headed north, then west and onto the plains where they smelled an enticing aroma of cooking, way up in the north at Wessel Islands and decided to go there. Lungurrma (the northeast wind) was carrying the smell.

One Dog headed north again, but the other Dog decided not to go with him and went back the opposite way. The first Dog that went to Malwanatharra (Sandy Point) went into the sea following its nose to wherever the smell was coming from. It is believed that this Dog still lives in the sea.