NYM BANDAK AND W.E.H. STANNER
In 1958 and 1959 Nym Bandak, a Murrinhpatha man
of the Diminhin clan, painted a number of pictures
for his friend, anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner.
He created the paintings within his Diminhim country,
at the mission at Port Keats (Wadeye) on the south
west coast of the Northern Territory. Bandak (had)
met Stanner in 1935 when the latter traveled with
... a small group of Catholic missionaries to
a remote area north of the Fitzmaurice River to
establish a mission in the vicinity of Port Keats.
At the time of the journey the Port Keats area
was virtually unknown to Europeans but was thought
to be home to warlike groups of Aboriginal people.
During (this) ... and on subsequent trips, Stanner
spent a great deal of time with Bandak and they
developed a close friendship and working relationship.
the education Stanner received from Bandak and
others whom he met at Daly River and Port Keats
in this period strongly influenced his scholarship
and helped establish him as a significant figure
in anthropological circles. Within his own cultural
milieu and community through a period of massive
social change when they were confronted with the
pervasive influence of Europeanism on their lives.
Stanner and the missionaries were made welcome
when they arrived on Diminhin land, but they found
a group of coastal people engaged in factional
disputes that often erupted into spear fights
followed by tense stand-offs.
... Initially, Aboriginal people came to the
mission for European goods such as tobacco, flour,
tea and sugar. Gradually many of the coastal groups
came to live at the settlement and this created
tension between Bandak's Diminhim group and others
living on their land ... A silent battle was also
being waged on another front between the value
system of the European Christian tradition and
that ordained by the Dreaming.
... In the course of his fieldwork in 1958, Stanner
showed Bandak and a number of his kinsmen a topographic
map of the Port Keats area, commissioned by the
Australian National University... After viewing
the European map, Bandak asked Stanner whether
he would like him to create some maps. Stanner
agreed and provided Bandak with sheets of composition
board on which to paint.
The paintings by Bandak were designed to convey
to his friend ... an understanding of the political
and social meaning of the landscape in the Port
Keats area and the form of the Murrinhpatha social
world. They, with Stanner's notes, provide an
insight into the philosophical basis of Murrinhpatha
thought and institutions. Shortly after the creation
of these paintings Stanner published significant
works on Aboriginal symbolism, religion and land
ownership. While all of these works were influenced
by Stanner's collaboration with Bandak, it is
within Stanner's famous monograph On Aboriginal
Religion where the influence of Bandak and
of his 1958 and 1959 paintings is most apparent.
Stanner went on to become an important figure
in Australian anthropology and within Aboriginal
affairs. The education he received from Nym Bandak,
and others within the Daly River area, contributed
to his ability to make significant contributions
to the debate which eventuated in the Aboriginal
Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976
and the progress of a number of land claims under
that Act.
The changes created in the outside world by Stanner
and others, led to the Daly River Reserve and
the Port Keats community becoming recognised as
Aboriginal land under Australian law. Shortly
after Stanner's last visit to Port Keats the Mission
became an Aboriginal community. Once again the
Aboriginal political systems and principles described
by Bandak in his paintings were explicitly recognised
as the cultural design which governs the Aboriginal
world.
To the outside world Nym Bandak became known
as an artist, at a time when Aboriginal art was
virtually unknown beyond academic circles ...
He is, however, remembered best by his kinsmen
and family as a significant figure whose adherence
to, and teaching of, Aboriginal cultural values
and principles contributed to their survival in
a rapidly changing world. |
