Living along the coast (detail)
A snake in the Mat-rush
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Phyllis's story: Since I've learnt how to weave I've realised how important it was for the Aboriginal people, for the women on the east coast, I've put the weaving plant, Lomandra, which was used for basket making and fish traps.
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Phyllis has used fibre from the Mat-rush plant and depicts the plant here with a snake winding through the leaves. Snakes are a food of the past but various species such as Red-bellied Black snake are frequently seen on walks in the bush today. Mat-rush (Lomandra longifolia) is a well-known material that was used in traditional weaving and is sometimes still used today because it has some advantages: Now the good thing about it is with the basket-making you only need ... just the grass, with this Lomandra. Other techniques you need to use needles … what we do is when it dries out, the fleshy part dries out hard and woody, and that’s your needle, and the rest is your thread! Cheryl Davison, Basket-making workshop at the Djuwin Women’s lore Council Culture Camp, 2005 |
