Nadjombolmi ("Charlie Barramundi") circa 1890-1967

Natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark

Acquired from the artist at Mudjinberri (Mudjinbardi) by Lance Bennett, in 1966
The Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands 

Cf Haskovec, I., and H. Sullivan. 1989. "Nadjombolmi: Reflections and Rejections of an Aboriginal Artist." In Animals Into Art edited by H. Morphy, 57-74.  London: Unwin Hyman, for extensive discussions of the artist’s life and rock art practise.

In an extensive article about the life and art of Nadjombolmi, he is identified as having created, “at least 604 individual paintings at no less than 46 sites… it is clear that he was the major individual contributor to rock art during the past 100 years. Although Nadjombolmi’s paintings are spread over an area of 1,800 Km², the area is well within the documented traditional seasonal range of an individual living within the region. ”  (ibid., p.70)

In Lance Bennett’s accompanying notes he states:

“In large holes in the vast rocky Arnhem Land plateau, which the Aborigines refer to as ‘the stone country’ live malicious spirits called Namorrordo. These are long haired people with very thin bodies (‘just a little muscle over their bones’) and long, slender fingers tipped with long nails.”

His biographical notes recall that the artist was, “a short, wiry figure, almost always surrounded by, and at times physically overwhelmed by his collection of scrawny, quarrelsome hunting dogs. Nadjombolmi was generally considered to be an entertaining and endearing companion, a straightforward man with a ready quip.

Among the peoples of the Alligator Rivers region, the artist was both widely liked for his sociability and deeply respected for his fund of ritual knowledge: he was a leader for the secret-sacred marraiyin (mardayin) ceremony. He derived great satisfaction from painting, and has left some significant creations on the rocks of the stone monolith known as Ungwardeh, in the area known as Balawurru (see G. Chaloupka, Journey in Time, Reed, 1993, pp.238-241).

Nadjombolmi was born at Balawurru, which lies at the headwaters of Noulandja Creek, between the East and South Alligator Rivers, ‘where the stone country begins’. Most of his life was spent in his home country, punctuated by intermittent contact with a succession of individual European adventurers who tried to eek a living in the buffalo plains region. As a young man he would roam in the bush around Balawurru, living in traditional fashion, occasionally walking seventy miles south-west to Goodparla cattle station (north-east of Pine Creek) for tobacco.

Later he undertook several jobs, as a skinner for a buffalo shooter, as a riding hand on a cattle station, and as a skinner for a lone white crocodile shooter. There were long intervals in which he would return to a traditional existence in the bush. In his final years he retired to a small Aboriginal community at Mudginberri cattle station between the South and East Alligator Rivers, close to where the mining town of Jabiru has since been established.

For all his lively joviality, Nadjombolmi was a sensitive man. Deeply attached to his wife, he lost much of his former zest following her death at the end of 1966. He died less than a year later.”