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This is Minyawe’s warrarn (Country), his ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance.
Minyawe’s warrarn encompasses the Country that he and his family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. Minyawe was born at Yilyara, a yinta (permanent spring) located on the border of Punmu Aboriginal community and immediately east of Nyayartakujarra (Ngayarta Kujarra, Lake Dora). He grew up, walked and hunted primarily around the Kulyakartu and Karlamilyi (Rudall River) regions. He continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s.
Portrayed in this work are features of Minyawe’s warrarn, such as the dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources he and his family camped at. These include Jinawanura, Kukulyurru, Kukupurtu, Kunti-kunti (Coondecoon Pool), Kurruka, Matulpa, Nyakula, Paji, Wilunganinya, Wungungarlkulu, Yilyara, Karlajarntu, Katarr, Wantamata, and Yanytikuji. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, and are generally depicted with circular forms.
The encyclopaedic knowledge of the location, quality and seasonal availability of the hundreds of water bodies found in one’s Country 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. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of Country, generating a greater diversity of plant and animal life.
