Warlawurru is a hill located just outside of Punmu Aboriginal community, and at the northern end of the Karlamilyi (Rudall River) region. The name for the hill derives from the Manyjilyjarra word for eagle hawk, the ancestral being associated with this site. Warlawurru is also believed to be a site of fertility, visited by women wishing to have a child.
“These are the rockholes around Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). My mum [Jugarda Dulcie Gibbs] painted the same. It’s my father’s Country; he was born at Well 33. I’m painting Well 35, Kinyu, all the way to Well 38, Wajaparni. This is a big place for us. It’s important. I went on a trip with Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa [ranger group] last year [2018] to visit all these rockholes.”
– Pauline Williams
Kunawarritji is an important site in the Great Sandy Desert where multiple stories and histories intersect. The area forms part of Pauline’s ngurra (home Country, camp) through her family. Originally a spring water and major Martu pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) camping site, at the turn of the 20th century Kunawarritji was converted into a well along the Canning Stock Route. Each year throughout the 1930-50s, the well became a site of contact between the drovers, their cattle, and desert families.
Long before colonial history entered this Country, however, other stories dominated the site. Primarily, Kunawarritji features in the Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) Jukurrpa (Dreaming). Minyipuru is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Today, Kunawarritji is a site of return, a place where people came back to continue their life in the desert with the formation of Kunawarritji Aboriginal community in the early 1980s. The community’s cultural significance endures, with the population swelling up to 1000 during cultural business.
As Pauline states in her account, this work depicts the waterholes and tali (sandhills) in the area surrounding Kunawarritji, typically represented with circular forms. During the pujiman 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 narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability.
Transfer of cultural knowledge through visual arts is an important way for Martu artists to keep their culture strong. Younger Martu artists like Pauline typically begin painting with their parents, grandparents and extended family, thus fostering an organic process of learning, not only about painting techniques, but also specific locations, family histories, traditional ways of life, bush tucker and Jukurrpa.
“When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see a colourful painting and wonder what it is, but that’s how Martu tell story long ago. It’s not just a lovely painting, it’s a story and a songline and a history and everything that goes with it.”
– Ngalangka Nola Taylor and Joshua Booth
This work portrays an area of Country that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the image may be read as an aerial representation of a particular location known to the artist- either land that they or their family travelled, from the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era to now. During the pujiman period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation), ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded with the use of a use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert.
An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire) are also often evident. A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is evident in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.
Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land. Very often, however, information relating to Jukurrpa is censored by omission, or alternatively painted over with dotted patterns.
Pinangu is a large claypan and adjacent soak located south east of Nyayartakujarra (Lake Dora). This site lies within Beverley’s ngurra (home Country, camp) through her mother.
Pinangu features as a site in the Wati Kujarra (Two Goanna Men) Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narrative. The Wati Kujarra existed as half men, half goanna. They were responsible for the creation of many land features in Martu Country and beyond as they travelled, hunted and burned Country together. Wati Kujarra is a ngurlu (sacred, taboo) men’s story, and for this reason much of the content is only shared with initiated men.
During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. 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 narratives.
Namorrorddo is a profane spirit sometimes called a ‘bad angel’ in Aboriginal English.
The Namorrorddo is a yirridjdja moiety being associated with the Yabbadurruwa regional cult ceremony.
Namorrorddo sits upon a rock and is usually painted with long claw like hands and feet. Sometimes spurs protrude from the elbows somewhat like those of a flying fox. Namorrorddo carries light, which emanates from his head. The shooting stars seen at night are Namorrorddo travelling across the night sky.
He whistles an eerie cry, which Aboriginal people say they can hear at night from time to time. Namorrorddo is feared as an evil being who attacks humans by clubbing them with his fighting stick or miyarrul. Namorrorddo is also sometimes depicted carrying bamboo spears and a spear thrower. Namorrorddo is a major dreaming totem for the Kardbam clan. There are a few examples of images of Namorrorddo painted in rock shelters in the Mann and Liverpool Rivers district.
Man-ngalinj is a root vegetable often described as ‘bush potato’. It’s duwa, the artist’s moiety. It has a bulbous root and a long thin vine with small flowers that grows across the ground or up the trunks of nearby trees. Large crops can be found near Kukadjerre. Man-ngalinj are harvested after the Wet season in the early Dry,
The left and middle are painted darker as they have been cooked
Coiling technique was introduced in the 1920s at Goulburn Island to the Maung people by missionaries and quickly spread to the mainland. Many artists produce coiled baskets of varied shapes, ranging from small round baskets to large oval baby baskets made from dyed pandanus. Artists combine colours and patterns to obtain intricate new graphic patterns.
Coiling technique was introduced in the 1920s at Goulburn Island to the Maung people by missionaries and quickly spread to the mainland. Many artists produce coiled baskets of varied shapes, ranging from small round baskets to large oval baby baskets made from dyed pandanus. Artists combine colours and patterns to obtain intricate new graphic patterns.
This is a painting of the Kira Kiro. Some are dancers, some are hunters and some are gatherers. They dance and sing songs and also gather a lot of food to celebrate.
Coiling technique was introduced in the 1920s at Goulburn Island to the Maung people by missionaries and quickly spread to the mainland. Many artists produce coiled baskets of varied shapes, ranging from small round baskets to large oval baby baskets made from dyed pandanus. Artists combine colours and patterns to obtain intricate new graphic patterns.