Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Merrepen (2005)

play May contain names, images or voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
clip Collecting roots and dye education content clip 1, 2

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

A group of women walk through bush collecting Merrepen and natural dyes to make dilly bags. The women tell us a good time to collect Merrepen is during the wet season when the spear grass is very dense and long. It is also the season for collecting dyes. Succulent green Merrepen seeds fill the screen, they provide the dye and will be crushed, and boiled in the billycan. The five women move from plant to plant gathering their resources. The pandanus plant is quite high so they use a stick to hook it and bring it down within reach.

Curator’s notes

by Romaine Moreton

The collection of shoots and seeds from the Merrepen and pandanus plants is time consuming. This clip gives a good insight into the labour of love exercised by the women who make these cultural artefacts. They use technology and knowledge passed on through millennia, generation to generation. It is a reminder that these skills need to be passed on to a new generation.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows a group of women from the Merrepen Arts Centre at Nauiya on the Daly River in the Northern Territory collecting merrepen and pandanus leaves for weaving as well as merrepen seeds for dyeing. The clip is narrated by Marrfurra from the Daly River area in her own language with English subtitles.

Educational value points

  • The Merrepen Arts Aboriginal Corporation was established in 1992. The Merrepen Art Centre grew from a women’s centre and is where a core group of about ten women artists work on a regular basis painting, screen-printing, weaving and sculpting. Another 50 women and a few men also produce work for the Centre.
  • As shown in this clip, the passing on of traditional knowledge and culture through art to a younger generation continues to the present day. The children are being shown the traditional ways of collecting and using bush plants and seeds for painting. The artists at the Centre use Western art media as well as traditional art forms to communicate cultural knowledge.
  • Merrepen (also known as the Livistonia palm) is a plant that is common across northern Australia and the central desert areas. In the Daly River area of the Northern Territory, women strip leaves from the merrepen and boil them with crushed merrepen seeds to dye them. The coloured fibres are dried, made into string then woven to make dilly bags, baskets and mats.
  • Pandanus dilly bags are made from the youngest bunches of long V-shaped leaves from the top of pandanus plants. The green leaves are pulled down with a long stick and split down the centre and the prickly edges removed. Thin even strips are split off and dried for weaving. Different types of pandanus are used for fibre crafts throughout mainland Australia and Tasmania.
  • Marrfurra introduces herself by her Aboriginal name; however, she is also known as Patricia Marrfurra MacTaggart. Marrfurra has co-written a book on the Aboriginal use of plants in the Daly River area and recorded the Malak Malak language in a dictionary and thesaurus. In 2005 she was awarded an Australian Medal (AM) for her work in preserving this Indigenous knowledge.
  • Living Country is part of a documentary series called Nganampa Anwernikenhe ('ours’ in the Pitjantjatjara and Arrernte languages). Produced by Central Australia Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) Productions based in Alice Springs, the program is recorded in local languages, focuses on local Aboriginal cultural life and aims to preserve traditional Aboriginal knowledge. It is broadcast by Imparja Television across central Australia.

This clip starts approximately 3 minutes into the documentary.

We see a group of Aboriginal women walking through the bush.
Aboriginal woman (Translation) I’m always listening and learning from the old ladies. We go out bush to collect Merrepen and natural dyes for weaving dilly bags. We call this palm Merrepen. We collect Merrepen, the new shoots from the middle. A good time to collect Merrepen is in the wet season when the spear grass is very long and dense. That season is also good for collecting the dyes. The old ladies go out and collect at any time of the day, even when it’s hot. This is Merrepen. Seeds. We boil these for dyeing. Yeah, I break this one here, we boil this in the billycan with Merrepen. We crush the seeds. I’m breaking off this Merrepen. This is what I do. We also collect Pandanus which we make baskets and mats from. We use a stick to hook the Pandanus.