Totemic design of Garr the Spider

( Information taken from notes on the back of the painting )

The story of the Spiders

At the beginning of Time, the Aboriginal man, Garrwidi, and his grandmother Bopirriny sat making ceremonial armbands at a place called Marri near Caledon Bay.

Into the strings they span grey fur from the possum, red breast feathers from the rainbow lorikeet, and breast feathers from the white cockatoo.  They sat all day, every day making armbands for all the clans. They hunted other birds and animals and used the feathers and fur from these to weave into other armbands.

At first they were a man and a woman, but later they changed and became spiders. Garrwidi became the orb-weaving spider, known as Garr, that spins its webs and hangs them from the trees.  Bopirriny became the trap-door spider that lives in a tunnel in the ground and spins a door to keep out intruders. Now they spin their webs instead of making armbands and they make their strings for this from inside their bodies. Both of them had wanted many children and now there are many of both sorts of spiders.

Other people lit a great bush fire and the spiders sat on, watching the flames  and the wind- blown ash and cinders.  At night they sat on watching the stars shining in the sky.