England Banggala saw the benefits of returning to homelands. In the early 1960s, as the senior ceremonial man, he took advantage of a colonial fiat and developed a market garden to supply the new Aboriginal service settlement of Maningrida. Gochan Jiny-jirra on the Cadell River became the first outstation, before the homelands movement gained the political momentum needed to establish the Land Rights Act.
Before settling at Gochin Jiny-Jirra, like many of his contemporaries Banggala moved around. He intermittently attended Milingimbi Methodist Mission School where a missionary gave him the name England. He worked as a farmer and carpenter at his lonely outstation, sometimes shot buffalo at Oenpelli and lived and worked in Darwin for long periods. Eventually Banggala married Mary Karlbirra, his promised wife, and they raised seven children.
Significantly, he taught his daughter, the renowned artist Dorothy Galaledba, how to paint his stories and in 2000 she won the male-dominated bark painting section of the prestigious Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Awards.
England Banggala’s art and leadership is testimony to the artist’s assurance about the power of the creator beings and their continuing relevance in understanding life in this area of Arnhem Land.
His family withdrew the works in this exhibition from public view as a mark of respect over the mourning period.
This text is part edited from: Anthony Murphy, Obituary for Elder from Cadell River, Association of Northern Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists, 2002
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2015
- Last updated:
- 2015
