Wilma was one of the last precontact memory active as a cultural educator and master weaver

Wilma was the only practicing Black Palm dilly bag. A basket unique to the Daintree Area. Wilma has passed on her practice to Minny and Rhonda Brimm /Mona Mona, and encouraged many apprentices in her public workshops to learn her crafts. 

 http://svc034.wic029p.server-web.com/storyplace/story_09.htm

‘I born up the Gorge on the riverbank in a gunya [shelter]
and police come along look for all the half-caste kids, but
they hid me . . . In them baskets.’

– Wilma Walker

The baskets made by Wilma Walker, a senior member of the Kuku Yalanji people of Mossman Gorge, are called kakan. These conical-shaped baskets were used for food collection, storage, the leaching of poisons (from seeds) in fresh running water, and carrying personal possessions. Larger versions lined with soft paperbark were used to carry babies.

When Wilma Walker was young, many ‘mixed-race’ children were abducted from their families and housed in missions or raised on stations. Her family decided to hide her so that the police would not be able to take her away. They hid her in a basket like these and gave her seed pods to play with so she wouldn’t cry. In this way, they successfully thwarted the government authorities. Wilma remembers:

 

I was just playing with that [seed pods] when them police come say, “No-one here. No more kids. All gone . . . take ‘em all away”.  When they went, all next day . . . young bloke . . . always climb up on the tree look for police, no car. And the car come along, he climb up there and, “They’re coming” . . . they hide me, so nothing.

Walker began to weave baskets as an adult, encouraged by her husband to draw on her memory of the old times. She taught herself traditional weaving techniques by remembering the baskets her family used to make and her story about being hidden. Walker is one of only a few senior Kuku Yalanji women who continue to weave baskets in the traditional way.

 

Basket Weaver, Ngadijina Wilma Walker is from the Kukuyalandji language group of Mossman Gorge in North Queensland. She learnt how to weave as a young child and now passes this knowledge on to the children of her local Aboriginal community. Weaver works in three main styles of basket weaving: 'Ibwey' - a bi-cornial carrying bag made from split lawyer vine; 'Jilngan' - a coil-bundle woven grass basket and 'Gagun' - an open weave style basket which is traditionally made from black palm leaves gathered from the rainforests of North Queensland.

The Gagun baskets are especially significant to Walker who was placed inside one by her mother and grandmother when she was about three or four years old to hide her from the authorities who came to Mossman Gorge (Gingalma) to remove "mixed raced" children from their families. Her work was shown in 'Storyplace' at Queensland Art Gallery in 2003 and she is in the permanent collections of Campbelltown Arts Centre and the Perc Tucker Regional Art Gallery, Townsville.

 

 

"Cairns Esplanade Public Workshops 2004 "
"Cairns Esplanade Public Workshops 2004 "
"Cairns Esplanade Public Workshops 2004 "
"Cairns Esplanade Public Workshops 2004 "
"Cairns Regional Gallery public workshops 2006 Rhonda Brim & Jenny Martin"
"Cairns Regional Gallery public workshops 2006"
"Cairns Regional Gallery public workshops 2006"
"Cairns Regional Gallery public workshops 2006 ;Margret Rocky Wilma Walker Ronda Brim"
"Laura 1997"
"Lomandra Grass basket 08"
"Lomandra Grass basket 08 "
"Black Palm Basket 6/08 "
"Black Palm Basket 6/08 "
"Black Palm Basket 6/08 "
" Rhonda teaching Cairns Esplanade 2004 "
Wilma Walker Laura 2007
Brim Family Laura 2007

 

Urub Trust

Foto compliments of Paul Lewis Gallery

Oceanic Catalogue:

Kakan Basket: Black Palm