Description

Roots and Mirrigal Guni M'angarla Many Mothers Necklace

 

 

About Roots and Mirrigal

We are a family owned and operated Aboriginal business committed to bring you products designed to capture the essence of the Australian landscape. 

 

For more than 65,000 years Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have successfully and sustainably navigated these lands and waters, developing deep and complex relationships with all living things. Each of our products are embedded with this particular concept of Indigenous worldview, relativity and interconnectivity. 

 

We are incredibly proud to carry on this legacy, and hope that you will be a part of our journey of locating, reviving, strengthening and sharing in this knowledge and timeless wisdom.

 

 

Product Features

Made from wattleseed, polymer clay, and high buffed to give a ceramic look. 

Chain Length: 47cm with 11cm Extender

Closing: Lobster Clasp

 

 

When I created this piece, I did it with both my 7 generations (or 400 years) of ancestors and my future 7 generations (or 400 years) of grandchildren in mind. 

There are seven branches of 'stones' descending from the chain, these represent each of the past and future generations, with the individual stone at the bottom representing where we are today.

 

The piece, like many Indigenous symbols, can be viewed from different directions to give different meanings and different interpretations of the same story.  Hence, the piece can be interpreted as 'Seven ways forward' or 'Seven ways back' to signify the layers of healing that must happen to create a healthy present, and a healthy present is important for a healthy future. 

 

Wattle seeds were generally used as a staple source of food, which sustained Aboriginal communities for tens-of-thousands of years. The seed of the wattle is protected by a husk, which is incredibly durable and resilient. Wattle seeds can lay dormant in the soil for decades, until they are activated by fire.

This is a metaphor for the resilience and strength shown by my family throughout the process of colonisation, and how despite being subject to various types of violence and oppression, my life and my creativity has been activated and motivated by what they went through, and has allowed me find healing within my own generational lines of ancestry.

 

 

 

 

About the Owner- Kerry Canning

My great grandparents were forcibly dislocated from their homelands in South West QLD and K'Gari/Fraser Island, and moved around various parts of Southern QLD. In the process of their forced relocation, my Grandmother, Mona Willis, was removed from her family and forced to work with no pay. Her daughter, my mother, was removed from her care as a child and carries a lot of trauma from her experience, which was consequently passed on to me.

 

A driving factor for my work and all of my designs is to heal what was broken, and to relocate what was lost, so that my great grandchildren don't have to. 

 

 This piece stems primarily from a conversation I had with my partner around 3 years ago, about a Native American philosophy of the Seven Generations. This is a belief that every action in the present should be done in accordance with the Law of 'Seven Generations', meaning that when making important decisions in the present, we should ask ourselves how our actions will affect or benefit the next seven generations of people. 

 

 We came up with the equivalent idea of the 400 year old gum tree. Aboriginal people were able to sustain this land for more than 65,000 years, which created conditions for 400 year old eucalyptus. We can still see those on the landscape, although there aren't many left due to them being cut down for timber during the early colonial period.

 

After having this conversation and coming up with this idea, we decided that we would try to base our current lifestyle on what it might take to foster conditions for our grandchildren to witness 400 year old trees. 400 years is the rough equivalent of seven generations.

 

A key difference however, is that within Aboriginal cultures, we mostly operate on non-linear time, so not only are we thinking about the future, but also the past. 

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