The Light of Wangarr

In relation to Wangarr, the spiritual power of the ancestral being and world creating force, the sacred likanbuy paintings¹ of the Yolngu of Arnhem Land, Australia, have a property of a different order, bir'yun, that they do not share with Yolngu paintings of other categories. Bir'yun can be termed an aesthetic property since it operates independently of the specific meanings encoded in a painting, though as we shall see it interacts with them. Bir'yun is a particular visual effect resulting from aspects of the form of likanbuy paintings. Donald Thomson writes² that the mundane or secular meaning of bir'yun refers to intense sources and refractions of light: to the sun's rays and to light sparkling in bubbling fresh water: Gong ngayi walu bir'yun-bir'yun, marrtji fingers his sun scintillate go The sun's rays scintillate.