Rangga- Aboriginal Australian ArtifactArtifact
Domains
Description
Sacred ceremonial objects of the Yolngu people, created and carried by the Djanggawul siblings during their Dreamtime journey across Arnhem Land. Decorated poles bearing clan designs, they are stored at sacred sites and brought out for ceremonies that connect participants to ancestral power.
Mythology & Lore
The Djanggawul's Objects
The Djanggawul siblings carried the rangga with them during their Dreamtime journey across northeastern Arnhem Land. R.M. Berndt documented the Djanggawul cycle and the objects' place in it. At each site the siblings visited, they left sacred power behind, and the rangga hold that power in material form: decorated poles bearing designs that belong to specific clans and encode specific Dreamtime narratives.
The objects are kept at sacred sites and seen only by initiated men. Strict protocols govern who may handle them. When they are brought out for ceremony, they are not displayed as symbols. In Yolngu understanding, the rangga contain the creative energy the Djanggawul invested in them. To handle a rangga is to hold the Dreamtime.
A clan's rights over its rangga are bound to its custodianship of country. The objects and the land belong together. To possess the rangga is to prove, in tangible form, the relationship between a people, their ancestors, and the ground they walk on.
Relationships
- Created by