Gwion Gwion
Ngarinyin · numen · Ngarinyin traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Gwion Gwion, also rendered Gyorn Gyorn, is the ancestral origin of painting itself. In Ngarinyin account the name belongs to a small long-beaked bird that pecks so hard at the rock that its beak bleeds, and with that blood it wipes the first marks across the stone, beginning the whole tradition of image-making. The same name is given to the ancient painters who first covered the shelters with finely drawn, ornamented human figures, and to those slender figures themselves, the oldest layer of Kimberley rock art, regarded as ancestors of the later Wandjina. Sources differ on whether Gwion Gwion is best understood as the bird, the ancient artists, or the painted beings, the three being held together as one continuous ancestral presence.
Domains
- origin of painting
Powers
- begin the tradition of painting
Sources
- Gwion Gwion (Gyorn Gyorn) names both the long-beaked cave bird that began painting by marking rock with its blood and the ancient ancestral painters and slender figures of the earliest Kimberley rock art.: Ngarjno, Ungudman, Banggal, Nyawarra & Doring, J. (2000) Gwion Gwion. Könemann (secondary); Cultural Survival Quarterly, 'Teachings from Ancient Gwion Art' (secondary)