During the late 19th century the people of the Torres Strait Islands, north of Australia, were converted to Christianity and their characteristic material culture gradually began to disappear. However, in the 1990s a group of young men coming back from conventional art-school training in mainland Australia began reviving traditional pattern-making though linocut printing. They adopted ‘minarals’ – patterns related to individual clans – as a background to figurative elements. The prints are often coloured with a technique known as kaideral, whereby a ball of muslin dipped in ink is dabbed onto the printing plate in the appropriate places.

Many of the images made by this group of artists are visual narratives of local myths and legends. This one celebrates local plants, gabaw (wild yam) and maniatho (cassava), showing them with the effigies typically stuck in the ground to protect crops and bring good harvests.