Man’s Love Story – Clifford Possum

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s “Man’s Love Story” is one of the most iconic images in Aboriginal art. The painting’s distinctive spindle motif has become widely recognised as an Aboriginal symbol for love and represents an important Dreaming story from the Papunya region. Clifford described this Dreaming story as one deeply connected to love, country, and song.

Big law this one. Everybody know this place and this story because this is a love story. Everybody know what this love mean. But everybody don’t know. Only me. This because I know the one. This is my country – proper really. I got all the songs for this one.

- Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

Artwork by Clifford Possum titled 'Man's Love Story' with iconographic map

The Dreaming Story of the Tjungurrayi Man at Ngarlu

Artworks by Clifford Possum with this title depict the activities of the ancestral Tjungurrayi man at Ngarlu. This is the site of a large rock hole about 10 kilometers southeast of Mt Allan Station. At this site, the Tjungurrayi man proceeded to spin a hair-string on a simple cross spindle known as ‘Wirrakurru’.

Clifford explains that the Tjungurrayi man desired a Napangardi woman who was the wrong kinship subsection for marriage. So he sent her a 'telegram' using the Wirrakurru. Some people explain that the Tjungurrayi was making love magic. The woman was drawn to his campsite by his singing.

The Tjungurrayi man became so distracted by her approach that he loses concentration on the spinning and the hair is blown away by the wind. During the night, four women of the Nungurrayi skin group approached and kept a vigil by the lovers’ campsite under the cover of darkness.

This is but a small chapter of a grand narrative that took place here.

Clifford Possum’s iconic Aboriginal symbol for love

While there are no universal Aboriginal symbols for love, life, family or strength, several artists have taken their complex inherited visual language and created a pared down vocabulary of symbols to create a personal pictorial code.

Clifford Possum was the first and arguably the finest artist to have done so. He made a range of striking motifs which represented his Dreaming stories, not with their traditional designs, but with his own set of symbols.

The earliest example and perhaps the most iconic is the spindle motif in his ‘Man’s Love Story’ artwork of 1973. It has become synonymous as a Dreamtime symbol used in Aboriginal art and as a symbol for love.

The iconography here symbolizes the activities of the ancestral Tjungurrayi man at Ngarlu. It captures the moment the Tjungurrayi is making love magic.

Learn More about Aboriginal Symbols