Merrepen
Clip 3: The dyeing begins
3 min 0 sec
Taken from the documentary Merrepen (2005)
Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be G
Availability of the complete title
Please be aware that this clip may contain the names, images and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may now be deceased.
Curator’s clip description
The women – Kitty, Mother Molly, sister Dorothy, Grandmother Mercia and Marrfurra – sit in the grass stripping the palm leaves. The preparation of dyes begins with the grinding of roots which are first washed, scraped and then pounded with a rock. Everything is put into a billycan and placed on a fire. The women explain that they must be careful when putting the fibre into the billycan so that the fire does not burn it. The fibres are boiled in the billycans and coloured by the dye.
Curator’s notes
The preparation of cultural artefacts – in this instance, dilly bags – is a time consuming practice that has been performed for thousands of years. The making of the dilly bags from the Merrepen palm requires not only knowledge of the process, but of the plants and the landscape in which they grow. All Aboriginal artefacts are symbolic forms of complex social structures and relationship to place.
Romaine Moreton, curator
have teachers’ notes.
