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Natawalu (Canning Stock Route Well 44)
“My great grandfather’s Country- [Canning Stock Route] Well 40 lake. I’ve never been there before. I only see it on the photos and all that. This place is a special place for the families.”
– Danielle Booth
Natawalu (Canning Stock Route Well 40) is a water source located northeast of Kunawarritji Aboriginal community, and at the eastern border of Martu Country. Natawalu is also a site visited by the Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) in one of the central Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people. The story is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation, and centres on the travels of a group of women as they walk, dance, and even fly from waterhole to waterhole across Western and central Australia.
As Danielle explains, this work is a depiction of her great grandfather’s Country. Over thousands of years, Martu lived in small, kin-based bands that traversed their own territorial areas by foot according to seasonal changes and cultural obligations. Walytja (family) groups had rights to their ngurra (home Country, camp) as inherited over generations. Also passed down over generations was the intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country, and the responsibility to care for and nurture one’s ngurra. The passing of rights and responsibilities through walytja in relation to specific lands continues today.
Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. Physical maintenance of one’s ngurra, like cultural maintenance, ensures a site’s wellbeing, and is a responsibility of the people belonging to that area.
