111582202986

Published by CompNet Systems on



Rockhole, Moolyella

“This is a rockhole- people coming this side and people coming round this [other] side, coming to that waterhole.

This painting is about every rockhole in Moolyella, where I used to work… We would walk and get some water from the rockholes and go away back home-  get that water from these rockholes when we were working. My father and mother’s surname was Mulialla, they were named after that place.”

– Lorna Linmurra

This work depicts a waterhole in the area around Moolyella, an area close to Marble Bar that was mined for tin from 1898. Industrial production ceased by 1921, and from the late 1920’s several Aboriginals families, including Lorna’s, began working the mine. Tin and other minerals were retrieved from claypans and dry river beds using a yandy (dish used for winnowing seed).  

Moolyella forms part of Lorna’s ngurra (home Country, camp), and as she describes in her account, each of the many water sources around the area were well known to herself and her family.

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 (Dreaming) 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.

Name: Lorna Linmurra


Community: Warralong


Biography:

“I was born in Hedland hospital. I grew up, Marble Bar area, we were staying there with nomad people, I was going to school. Nomad people would take us everywhere. We then went to Roebourne, everywhere we go. I started working making tins for lollies, for a few years I did. We didn’t know anything [then], we were young people"

- Lorna Linmurra

Lorna was born in Port Hedland. In more recent years she moved to Warralong Community with her family, where she remains today. Warralong community is located 120 kilometres south east of Port Hedland and 50 kilometres north of Marble Bar in the Pilbara. The community lies between the Shaw and De Grey Rivers.


© the artist / art centre