Corroboree at Coranderrk
1890
- Artist/s name
- Captain Harrison
Wergaia
- Medium
- gouache, watercolour, pencil on paper
- Measurements
- 56.0 x 75.7 cm (image and sheet)
- Place/s of Execution
- Coranderrk, Healesville, Victoria
- Accession Number
- 2004.592
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 2004
- Gallery Location
- Gallery 11
Level 2, NGV Australia
Captain Harrison was born in the mid 1840s in the Richardson River district of Victoria and passed away at Coranderrk Station in 1908. It was likely that he was a Wergaia man but his country is also close to that of the Dja Dja Wurrung people so he may have been affiliated with both or either tribal group.
Captain Harrison lived at Ebenezer mission near Lake Hindmarsh before moving to Coranderrk Station. He was a contemporary of William Barak (Wurundjeri c. 1824–1903).
Corroboree at Coranderrk depicts five men and five women taking part in a corroboree. The work is covered with tiny blue dots that surround the figures. The men are depicted with lyre bird feathers in their hair while the women wear colourfully patterned possum skin cloaks with necklaces or painted designs on their necks. Two fires burn in the foreground, possibly symbolising the moieties taking part in the corroboree and to acknowledge the local ancestral beings Waa (crow) and Bundjil (eagle).
