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Nyirti Jukurrpa
“When we was little kids, used to tell us this story. It was told by many generations – repeated. We still tell it today. One place to another, they keep on going. This one only we know – kids form the 80’s or 90’s. We grew up on the story, I’m bringing it back. White people have three little pigs, we have this one:
In the beginning like in the dreamtime the emu (karlaya) was the biggest flying bird. One day turkey (kipara) came across and saw him and he got jealous – he wanted to be the biggest bird flying. So he was thinking how I gonna make him cut off his wings. He make a little trick on him, Turkey folded his arms to make him look like wings. ‘look I can run really fast, cut off your wings they make you slow!’ Showing off saying ‘I can run, see,’ running around. Emu believed him.. ‘Okay, I’ll copy you,’ so he cut himself. He cut his wings off.
One day, Emu saw Turkey and he saw that he still had his wings so he figured out that he tricked him… Turkey didn’t see emu, so he was thinking ‘I’ve got to trick him back’ because he already cut off his wings. He told Emu, if you only have 2 eggs it’s make your life more easy. Back then Turkey had more eggs than emu. So emu showed him that if you have two eggs you don’t have to work, only have to look after two. So he made the Turkey bust all his eggs – one or two left… and that’s why he make only one or two eggs. The oldest kids story.”
– Owen John Biljabu
The term Jukurrpa is often translated in English as the ‘dreaming’, or ‘dreamtime’. In this case, Nyirti Jukurrpa can be understood in English as children’s stories, nyirti meaning ‘the littlest one’ in Martu language. Jukurrpa refers generally to the period in which the world was created by ancestral beings, who assumed both human and nonhuman forms. These beings shaped what had been a formless landscape; creating waters, plants, animals, and people. At the same time they provided cultural protocols for the people they created, as well as rules for interacting with the natural environment. At their journey’s end, the ancestral beings transformed themselves into important waters, hills, rocks, and even constellations.
