Too many meanings : an analysis of the artistic system of the Yolngu of Northeast Arnhem land

Abstract

This thesis is an analysis of the structure and operation of the artistic system of the Yolungu people who live in the Yirrkala region of North-east Arnhem Land, Australia. The analysis is approached from a semiological perspective examining Yolngu art as a system of encoded meaning. The thesis is divided into three main sections. In the first section I examine in detail the social context of art, focusing on the distribution of rights in paintings, the operation of the artistic system in the context of Yolngu politics, the instrumental functions of art objects in ceremonial contexts and their integration within the thematic structure of ceremonies as a whole. The second section consists of an analysis of the structure of the artistic system. I identify and define the components if the artistic system, considering them from a semantic perspective. I consider in particular the properties of the two main systems of representation employed in Yolnga art, one figurative, the other geometric, demonstrating the different ways in which the components are combined to produce different categories of painting with different semantic properties. I show how the paintings are appropriate to the different contexts in which they occur. I consider the functioning of the artistic system in the context of a system of restricted knowledge. Throughout the section I consider the appropriateness of the concept of iconicity as a basis for understanding the relationships between signifier and signified within the system. The third section examines in detail the iconography of the paintings of a single clan, the Manggalili. I show the relationship between different levels of meaning are encoded in the same meaning is encoded in different paintings. In conclusion I consider the sense in which paintings have power such that they are believed to be able to communicate between the human and the ancestral world and also the ways in which paintings enhance the believability of ancestral beings. I show that rather than there being a single source of power Yolngu art has a multiplicity of power sources. The power is derived from the different ways in which the artistic system us integrated with other aspects of the Yolngu socio-cultural system as well as from the potentialities of the artistic system itself.