CRUSOE KURRDAL ASSISTED BY LENA KURIYINA - MIMIH
CRUSOE KURRDAL ASSISTED BY LENA KURIYINA
MIMIH SPIRIT, 2000
174h x 10w cm
Ochre on Carved Wood
REGION
Maningrida, NT
PROVENANCE
Maningrida Arts and Culture, NTAncient Earth Gallery, Hahndorf, SA
Private Collection, WA
Deutcher and Hackett, Melbourne, 6 June 2023, Lot 16
Private Collection, Melbourne Vic
The National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, Redfern NSW
Art Leven, Redfern Gadigal NSW
STORY
The people of Western Arnhem Land believe that Mimih spirits lived in a social organization similar to Aboriginal people and that Mimi society existed before humans. Mimih are credited with instructing the first people with knowledge relating to survival in the rocky environment of the Arnhem Land plateau. They are said to have taught the first humans how to hunt and butcher game and also how to dance, sing and paint.
These spirits are terribly thin, having necks so slender that a stiff breeze would be fatal. For this reason they emerge only on windless days and nights to hunt. As soon as a breeze develops, the Mimi are said to run back to their rocky caverns and disappear inside.
