"PUNU" - CARVED GOANNA MULGA POKER WORK

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On the bed I've put a piece of 'punu' that I really like. I bought it at the Salvo's six months ago. Again I have to say I am not an expert on indigenous art and objects. I buy what I like and can afford.....when the opportunity arises. I've put it here with a number 7 killer boomerang, posted yesterday.

"Punu" is a term used to describe these tourist wares made of mulga and decorated with traditional pokerwork designs burnt onto the surface of the objects.

A mulga wooden carving featuring a goanna with pokerwork design on the upper side of the body featuring scale patterns bands of circle design surrounded by blackened pokerwork. The goanna is carved from solid form with it's tail and body in a straight line. The head has eyes integrated into the scale decoration and the pointed tail has a line dividing the decoration to the tip. The legs are carved and decorated and the underside has a pronounced belly. On the underside of the tail is the letter "F" in white paint.

"Alongside the development of tourism in central Australia in the 1930s and 1940s, Aboriginal people began producing artefacts for sale to the tourist market. For example, at the Hermannsburg mission Albert Namatjira was encouraged to produce mulga plaques, boomerangs and woomeras (spear throwers) decorated with pokerwork and watercolour landscapes. Since the 1940s artists in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta region have produced coolamons (wooden bowls) and punu (wood carvings of animals decorated with pokerwork). Inevitably cultural hierarchies differentiate between fine art objects and tourist souvenirs but for Anangu artists, punu is part of the tjukurrpa (Dreaming)."

http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/units/aht214/desertmob/uluru.html

This is not considered art as such but it is an object that tells us about "the years following the 1967 referendum, when dramatic changes in the governance of Aboriginal people took place, up to 2005 when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was dissolved. It provides a snapshot of the diversity and changes in Indigenous art and its representation which occurred during the period of its formation. The small number of 'non-art' objects in the collection is also significant in providing insights into the working of the various Commonwealth bodies involved in Indigenous affairs. As well as the significance of many of the individual pieces, the collection is also significant as a whole, as a complex artefact stemming from Australia's history of governance of Australian Indigenous peoples."

http://www.nma.gov.au/collections-search/display?irn=145430

Dimensions
Length: 27 cm or 10.6"
Width: 4 cm or 1.6"
Height:4 cm or 1.6"