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Pitu (Separation Well)

“Pitu, soak, big one. Water there all the time. Pitu, the place for our whole family. [As a young girl] I walked around and went east back to my dad’s area, to Pitu and Kulilu, Nakaly and Kunapila. Then I was a teenager. My Country is Pitu and Nakaly, that’s my Country.

This man here, he came through here in the Dreamtime, walking right up through here and then he flew. Other one, a man and a woman, coming behind him, following him right up through here and then finish, I don’t know where they’ve gone. There is one more woman, going across here. Those three people walked through this Country and disappeared when they flew somewhere. They went forever. That was in the Dreamtime when they were walking around.”

 – Ngamaru Bidu, as translated by Ngalangka Nola Taylor

Pitu (Separation Well) is an important cultural site and large soak located yulparirra (south) of Wuranu (Canning Stock Route Well 29) and Kulilu rockhole and soak. As a site where fresh water was available all year, Pitu was an important camp and a meeting place for Kartujarra and Manyjilyjarra people during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era. At this time, 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 by name, location, quality and seasonal availability through real life experience and the recounting of Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. 

Pitu lies within Ngamaru’s ngurra (home Country, camp), the area which she knew intimately and travelled extensively with her family in her youth. Ngamaru’s family name, ‘Bidu’, derives from this place name. In her account of the area, Ngamaru relates a Jukurrpa narrative that occurred in and around Pitu. The term Jukurrpa is often translated in English as the ‘Dreaming’, or ‘Dreamtime’. It 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.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Ngamaru Bidu

Language: Manyjilyjarra

Community: Parnngurr

Biography:

“I been born [around] Karanyal and Martilirri (Canning Stock Route Well 22) in the parna (ground, earth), only claypan. My jamu (grandfather) [was also] Jakayu [Biljabu's] father, my father's daddy. My mummy born long way, near to Wikirri (Midway Well) area. My father born Pitu (Separation Well). I’m biggest one [I was the eldest of five siblings]; me, Neil, Ivy, Gladys, then Caroline. My sister Gladys been born Wantili, Ivy born Georgia Bore (Pitarny), Caroline been born in Jigalong [Mission]. We walked around together [as we were] growing up.”

[As a child, Ngamaru walked around with her family, living a pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) lifestyle. In 1963 Ngamaru saw a whitefella for the first time near Wiirnukurrujunu rockhole; surveyor Len Beadell grading a road across the desert as part of a military weapons testing program. Shortly after this meeting Ngamaru, along with the other 28 Martu she had been travelling with, was tracked and pursued up by the Native Welfare Department. The group was eventually persuaded to move to Jigalong mission to join their relatives that had already moved in from the desert.] 

“They been chase us, long way - me, Ivy, and Kuru [Gladys] ran away with Mitchell and Teddy Biljabu. Kumpaya, Bugai and my mother ran away quick too. Landrover he been pick us up for Parngurr, all the lot, [driving on the] track for Jigalong. Family all coming in. I been come for first time [it was my first time in a vehicle]. I was naked one, put a blanket for kurnta (shame). I been living there in Jigalong with my mummy and family. I been working in the dining hall, making bread for kid. I been meet my nyupa (spouse), Mr Booth, and had a son, Ned Booth.” 

 - Ngamaru Bidu

 

Ngamaru was born at Martilirri (Well 22 on the Canning Stock Route), the eldest of four siblings. Her mother came from the area around Wikirri and her father from Pitu. As a child Ngamaru lived a pujiman lifestyle, and walked around with her family, moving from water source to water source dependent on the seasonal rain cycles. They often travelled with their extended relatives, Bugai Whyoulter and Jakayu Biljabu’s families. 

When Ngamaru was a teenager, her family and their travelling companions were tracked by Native Patrol Officers and staff from the Jigalong Mission. The group was persuaded to move to Jigalong Mission, where they rejoined the many family members that had already moved in from the desert. At the mission, Ngamaru’s sister and some of the Biljabu family were sent to school, but Ngamaru went to work making bread. 

From Jigalong Ngamaru moved to Strelley Community, where she met her husband, Joshua Booth. Together with their children they later moved to Warralong and then Punmu Aboriginal Communities before settling in Parnngurr Aboriginal community (Cotton Creek), where Ngamaru continues to live today. 

Ngamaru has painted with Martumili since its inception in 2006. She has frequently painted with senior artists and relatives Mitutu Mabel Wakarta (dec.) and Kumpaya Girgaba. Ngamaru is known for the beautifully complex compositional structures and intricate patterning in her work, through which she very often explores the practice of fire burning in her Country and its related Martu cyclical seasonal changes. Ngamaru’s work has been exhibited in galleries internationally and throughout Australia, and acquired by the National Museum of Australia. She was selected in 2019 for the prestigious John Stringer Art Prize exhibition.

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