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Wells on Canning Stock Route

“When they done the road it separate[d] all the families from that area, and some didn’t even know where the families ended up. Some Martu have long stories. Some of them went so far, and they got young ones in some other place far off. And they have to tell the families where they from.”

– Kumpaya Girgirba

Western Australia’s gold rush, beginning in 1885, created a huge demand for beef from mines located between Halls Creek and Wiluna. At that time, most of Western Australia’s cattle came from the Kimberley, though an infestation of tropical ticks among the East Kimberley herds gave the West Kimberley pastoralists a monopoly on the beef trade — causing prices to soar. A Royal Commission in 1904 proposed the construction of a stock route through Western Australia’s desert country to eliminate the ticks through exposure to its hot, dry conditions, resulting in the near 2000 kilometre Canning Stock Route. The proposal was successful insofar as the eradication of ticks was concerned; however, the establishment of the Canning Stock Route was to have far reaching repercussions for Western Australia’s Aboriginal population. 

The construction of the route by Alfred Canning and his team in 1910 resulted in first contact with Europeans for many Martu then living a pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) life in the desert. This contact began with Canning’s use of Aboriginal guides to lead him to the sources of water that would be transformed into 48 stock route wells. Acts of cruelty toward these guides included, amongst other things, chaining them at night to prevent their escape and giving them salt water to drink, thereby ensuring their thirst and subsequent necessity to lead the party to water sources.

Following the construction of the Canning Stock Route, Martu encountered Europeans and other Martu working as cattle drovers as they would travel up and down the Stock Route from water source to water source. Increasingly, pujiman followed the route to newly established ration depots, mission and pastoral stations. They were drawn to the route in search of food, by a sense of curiosity, or by loneliness. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, most of the desert family groups had left the desert. Eventually, these factors combined with an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s to prompt the few remaining pujiman to move in from the desert. One of the last major migrations of Martu people occurred in 1963, when many of the pujiman born Martumili Artists moved to Jigalong.

Patterns of movement which had defined Aboriginal people’s relationships to Country were forever changed by the Canning Stock Route, but the Martu relationship with Country remains strong through the maintenance of physical and cultural ties to desert life and knowledge.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Kumpaya Girgirba

Language: Manyjilyjarra

Biography:

“I came back to do painting in my side [region] and even taught the others to paint. My auntie showed me how to paint and … which part of the Country I should do- only my area and my stories on my side… From there I never stop painting, and first when I started I did so many, lots and lots of painting ... and so we taught each other and everybody else is doing it now.

Wangka is storytelling – like a drawing, putting something on the canvas. Painting it, but old people used to tell stories on the sand, with fingertips… They draw it in the sand like they do on a canvas. [I paint] my own [stories], where I came from, where my parents used to take me, where my grandparents area [was], where we used to hunt and go place to place, camping with my parents and grandparents.” 

 - Kumpaya Girgirba, as translated by Ngalangka Nola Taylor

 

Kumpaya is a Manyjilyjarra woman, respected law woman and cultural leader, born in the 1940s close to Kiwirrkurra, a rockhole located in the Gibson Desert and to the south west of Lake McKay. Her brothers include the renowned artists Charlie Wallabi (Walapayi), Helicopter and Patrick Tjungurrayi, all of whom she has outlived. In her youth, Kumpaya grew up in the area surrounding Kiwirrkurra, and continued to live a pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) lifestyle into adulthood; “When I was a young girl, I walked everywhere, travelling along the Canning Stock Route. I walked north and west, around Wana warla (lake). I grew up around there, going right around that Country and all the way back to Kunawarritji.” (Kumpaya Girgirba)

Kumpaya intentionally avoided the European drovers that travelled along the Canning Stock Route, but eventually she, her husband, three children and the extended family group with whom she was travelling encountered surveyor Len Beadell in 1963. He was grading roads through the Western Desert for the Woomera Missile Testing Range. “That whitefella had fruit, flour and tucker... He gave all the little kids fruit [and they] made the biggest waru (fire)... and cooked it. When they came back… it had cooked away to nothing, there was nothing there to eat.” (Kumpaya Girgirba)

Len Beadell notified staff at Jigalong Mission of their whereabouts, and consequently they were tracked and persuaded to relocate to the mission. There they rejoined many relatives that had already moved in from the desert. After living for a time at the mission, Kumpaya worked on several pastoral stations throughout the Pilbara, washing clothes and making damper (a type of flat bread). In 1982, during the ‘Return to Country’ movement, she relocated with her family to Parnngurr Aboriginal community, where she continues to live today with her children and grandchildren.

Kumpaya is an extraordinary teacher and orator, with particular skill in gathering artists together for large collaborative projects. She primarily paints her ngurra (home Country, camp), along the middle section of the Canning Stock Route, and between Punmu Aboriginal community and Kiwirrkura, more than 500 kilometres eastward. Kumpaya learned how to paint and weave baskets while visiting family in Balgo, Fitzroy Crossing and Patjarr, and is credited with introducing these skills to Martu people. Kumpaya’s work has been exhibited widely across Australia and internationally, and acquired by the National Museum of Australia.

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