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Artist Statement:
"A stranger came to Mornington Island from the west.He was very, very skinny so they took him to where cooking turtle and dugong and getting food ready for a big corroboree.The stranger started begging,"I'm a stranger,from the inland-give me some food." "No" replied the women,"this is sacred food, it belongs to all the men." "Ah",said the stranger. "I'm starving sister give me some meat. I'm hungry." "No", said the women "we can't get you any". The stranger kept on and on asking and begging,but the women wouldn't even let him have a small taste. All day he kept begging.That night the dancing started and the stranger was still begging. He was telling the men to dance , harder and faster, "Come on all you men, make more dust, dance, dance, "and to the women, "Please give me some food, I'm so hungry, I'm a stranger please please". "No," said the women there are too many people to share the food now." But then the women gave him a small piece of food, and he took a big bite. He kept telling the men to dance more and more,that he was a stranger and wanted to see their dances. The more they danced the dust rose higher and higher and the dancers could not see him begging for food and eating more and more.Then the stranger ran away with the food and ate it all until he was very fat. The men was so angry they tracked him and chased him through three mangrove swamps. They caught him in the last of the mangroves and he tried making excuse that he was only looking after the meat for the men.But they knew he was lying,so they speared him and cut him all over. His spirit moved in a big circle around part of the island,then went under the ground at spring point.(Lingala) which is the spring he made when he went into the ground. The path that he took around the part of the island forms the main water course.
Later he rose into the sky and became the moon,called Gidegal- the skinny moon is the hungry stranger, the full moon is when he is fat and full from eating all the food, and the quarters when he is chopped up. At the full moon,you can see the red of his blood. In the old days when there was an eclipse it reminded the people of when the moon man was killed,and the people mourned him."
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