Artist: Charlene Carrington
Title: Mistake Creek Massacre
Size: 120cm x 90cm
Date: 2001
Language Group: Gija
Description: This painting depicts an event in the 1920’s beside the large jurmulun (boab tree) at Mistake Creek. The manager of the old Turkey Creek Post Office told an aboriginal employee from Darwin to look for a lost milking cow. The man found the cow and a group of Gija people who were eating kangaroo and echidna around a camp fire. The man removed the bell from the cow and set it free. He reported back to the manager that the Gija people had killed and eaten the cow. The manager rounded up a group of 26 men, women and children against a large boab tree and shot and burnt them. The bottom of the painting shows the place then and the top shows the place today.
Biography of Artist: Charlene’s parents are Sadie Carrington and Churchill Cann. Her maternal grandparents are Betty Carrington and Beerbee Mungnari; and great uncle – Hector Jandany; step grandfather – Patrick Mung Mung – a most impressive family of artists. Charlene was inspired to start painting by Hector Jandany who with Queenie McKenzie and Rover Thomas taught the children of the community dreaming stories and how to paint using natural pigment techniques at Warmun.
