Narritjin Maymuru was a prolific artist who also produced many paintings of Milŋiyawuy. In these works, the central section comprises a cluster of stars framed by wavy lines that represent the margins of the river, both in the sky and on earth. On either side, the constellations of Milŋiyawuy appear in figurative form. The central figure contained within symmetrically opposed wavy lines is a Maŋgalili clan design. It represents, among other things, the ŋaraka (bones) of the clan—its permanent, everlasting core. The design can be painted on the body of a boy during his circumcision ceremony or on the body or coffin lid of a dead person, connecting their spirit to the Waŋarr (ancestral beings) associated with the clan. Yolŋu cosmology centers on the relationship between the ancestral and lived worlds, reproduced through a cyclical spiritual temporality. People are born of birrimbirr (conception spirits) emanating from their clan’s ancestral beings, which are imminent in certain powerful places in the landscape—djalkiri (foundational places)—where the ancestral forces are concentrated. On death, one dimension of birrimbirr returns to the djalkiri place, while another becomes visible in the sky at night. Nami uses the word mali (reflection, shadow, image) to describe this manifestation. Milŋiyawuy connotes this complex spatio-temporal process, in which the person is first in a state of coming into being and then finally fades out of corporeal existence.

– Howard Morphy with Naminapu Maymuru-White and Frances Morphy