Maureen Beeron is a Girramay woman of the Murray River area. She lives at the Jumbun Community near Murray Falls, north-west of Cardwell. Maureen is a weaver of wungarr, traditional lawyer cane eel traps, jawun bicornual baskets and is skilled in traditional string making from bark. Her cousin-sister passed on these weaving skills to Maureen who continues to create these traditional functional artworks.
When creating jawun, Maureen collects the lawyer cane from the rainforest at the Jumbun community, removes the spiky outer ‘skin’ of the cane and prepares the cane from splitting by passing it through the fire. The cane is then finely split and woven into the jawun bicornual shape. Some of her notable past works include a large jawun and and extra large jawun made for carrying babies. A similar process is carried to create wungarr traditionally used to trap eels in freshwater creeks.
