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Urnapai

This painting depicts some large yinta (rockholes with permanent water) in the artist’s country, called Urnapai & Wirltun.

This work depicts a yinta (permanent spring) within the artists’ ngurra (home Country, camp), typically represented with circular forms. Yinta represent a reliable source of water and were traditionally used as camping sites throughout the year. 

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) period, knowledge of water sources was critical for survival, and today Martu Country is still defined in terms of the location and type of water. Each of the hundreds of claypans, rockholes, waterholes, soaks and springs found in the Martu desert homelands is known through real life experience and the recounting of jukurrpa (dreamtime) narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability. This encyclopedic knowledge extends even to the nature and movement of arterial waterways, and sustained Martu as they travelled across their Country, hunting and gathering, visiting family, and fulfilling ceremonial obligations. They would traverse very large distances annually, visiting specific areas in the dry and wet season depending on the availability of water and the corresponding cycles of plant and animal life on which hunting and gathering bush tucker was reliant.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Pukina Burton

Language: Manyjilyjarra

Community: Punmu

Biography:

Pukina was a Manyjilyjarra man born in the northern Great Sandy Desert. His home Country was to the north and east of Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). When Pukina was a young man he lived a nomadic lifestyle, travelling around with all his family. They would traverse large distances annually, visiting specific areas in the dry and wet season depending on the availability of water and the corresponding cycles of plant and animal life on which hunting and gathering bush tucker was reliant. 

Pukina said that everything changed when the government came and picked him up in a motorcar and took him to Jigalong Mission. For many Martu, Jigalong Mission was where their pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) lifestyle came to an end from the late 1940s as they transitioned to a life as stockmen and women working in cattle stations in the Pilbara region and beyond. In the wake of the extreme and prolonged drought of the 1960s, the last of the remaining pujimanpa (desert dwellers) were forced to move to missions like Jigalong, where a supply of food and water was assured. There, many were reunited with family members that had already moved in from the desert.

In later life Pukina relocated to Punmu Aboriginal community with the ‘Return to Country’ movement of the 1980s. Pukina’s paintings depict his ngurra (home Country, camp) in the Kunawarritji area, the Country he walked as a young man; its animals, plants, waterholes and associated Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. His work has been exhibited widely across Australia.

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