111582254445
Minma Dancing
“All the minma [ladies]. Dancing around. They was singing, dancing, all night. Digging stick. Holding kuturu [timber bowls used for carrying food and water] and wira [digging stick]. Around the fire. They made a big fire. Dancing all around it.”
-Sharon Porter
This story is part of a Jukurrpa story passed onto Sharon by her grandmother, Katjarra Butler. 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.