Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Nyirlpirr Ngalyaku Spider Snell (c1925-), a Wangkatjunka Elder, teaching members of his community about Kurtal, their snake ancestor. In the opening scenes he shows his paintings that illustrate the Kurtal Dreaming. Footage of a waterhole and a man wearing body paint and headdress appear before scenes that show the family’s arduous four-wheel-drive journey across the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia to visit Yurramaral, the jila (waterhole) in which Kurtal resides. Subtitles and screen titles are used. Traditional Aboriginal music with clap sticks and singing are heard.

Educational value points

• The clip shows how the determined efforts of senior men help to ensure that Aboriginal culture lives on. Wangkatjunka Elder Spider is sole custodian of knowledge of the Kurtal ceremony, knowledge that he learned as a young man when three senior men taught him the key dance ceremonies. Now he passes on his knowledge of the Dreaming through his paintings and dances.

• The significance of water, essential for survival, is central to the Kurtal Dreaming and ceremonies, which are of great spiritual significance. The Kurtal Dreaming tells that the waterhole is the home of Kurtal the Snake Spirit, which protects the spring and brings rain to the surrounding country. The Kurtal ceremony helps ensure the health of the waterhole with the dancer’s headdress representing the rain cloud, Kutu Kutu.

• Features of the communication of knowledge in an oral culture are shown in the clip. Traditional knowledge is regarded as belonging to the whole community. An Elder has a responsibility to pass on this cultural heritage to younger members of the community when they are deemed ready to receive it. Dreamings are usually shared face-to-face with a group. Song, dance and ritual can help reinforce this important knowledge.

• The clip uses a range of film techniques to present the narrative in keeping with the oral culture it features. The close relationship between art and nature in Indigenous Dreamings and ceremony is suggested by the use of cross fades as painted images and film of a ceremonial dancer merge into footage of waterhole and sky. Fragmented images of the landscape in both close-up and wide shots capture a range of viewpoints and convey the ordeal of the journey.

• The clip features Nyirlpirr Spider Snell, an Indigenous Elder, dancer and artist. He was born in Yurramaral, the site of an important permanent waterhole in the Great Sandy Desert in WA, and worked as a stockman at Christmas Creek Station. He had his first solo art show in 1997. His artwork and dance performances have been seen widely in Australia and overseas.

• The clip is part of an award-winning film made by Australian filmmakers Nicole Ma and Michelle Mahrer. In 2002 the film 'Kurtal: Snake Spirit’ (2002) won the Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) Award for Best Short Film Documentary. It won the Best Documentary Film in Italy at a festival of religious films in 2003. Ma and Mahrer specialise in films that explore cross-cultural themes. Their 2005 film 'Dances of Ecstasy’ is on the Dervish dancers of Turkey.