September 2021

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Kartarru (Blue Hills Station, Canning Stock Route Well 24)

At Kartarru (Blue Hills Station, Canning Stock Route Well 24) located northeast of Kumpupirntily (Kumpupintily, Lake Disappointment), good drinking water is reliably available, and minyarra (bush onion) grows in seasonal abundance. For these reasons the site was a popular camping area during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era. This site lies within Miriam’s ngurra (home Country, camp), the area which she knew intimately and travelled extensively with her family in her youth. 

Kartarru features as a site in two important Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives, Wati Kujarra (Two Goanna Men) and Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, or Seven Sisters). During their epic journey across Australia the Minyipuru danced at Kartarru after stopping at Kaalpa (Kalypa, Canning Stock Route Well 23).

Kartarru is also the site of the old Blue Hills Station. Blue Hills, now abandoned, was a small Martu cattle outstation established in the post World War II years. The station was famously run by Miriam’s uncle and Putijarra Martu, Tommy Ingebong.

The intersection of the Canning Stock Route with Kartarru also made this a site of early contact with Europeans for many Martu then living a pujiman life in the desert. Following the route’s construction, Martu encountered Europeans and other Martu working as cattle drovers as they would travel up and down the Stock Route from water source to water source. Increasingly, pujimanpa (desert dwellers) followed the route to newly established ration depots, mission and pastoral stations. They were drawn to the route in search of food, by a sense of curiosity, or by loneliness. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, most of the desert family groups had left the desert. Eventually, these factors combined with an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s to prompt the few remaining pujimanpa to move in from the desert.

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Wurnanjarra

The artist has painted some of her grandother’s country, known as Wurnanjarra. Wurnanjarra is where Karlamilyi, or Rudall River, runs underground; this is depicted as the dark blue area. Large tuwa, or sand hills are found in this area also.

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Untitled

This work portrays an area known intimately to the artist, painted here in exquisite detail from memory. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era 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), and different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation) were carefully observed and remembered. Today, this relationship with Country remains equally strong, despite the movement of Martu out of the desert and into remote Aboriginal Communities, towns and cities.

Also visible may be traces of life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire). 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 visible 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. 

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Untitled

This work portrays an area known intimately to the artist, painted here in exquisite detail from memory. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era 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), and different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation) were carefully observed and remembered. Today, this relationship with Country remains equally strong, despite the movement of Martu out of the desert and into remote Aboriginal Communities, towns and cities.

Also visible may be traces of life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire). 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 visible 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. 

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Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33)

“I learnt how to paint in Kunawarritji; I’ve been painting here. I go to Punmu, Jigalong and Parnngurr, but I always go home to Kunawarritji. I learnt how to paint in Kunawarritji.

[When I was young] I was walking around Kunawarritji and Kun Kun, looking for meat with Jakayu and her family.”

 – Bugai Whyoulter

Kunawarritji is an important site in the Great Sandy Desert where multiple stories and histories intersect. Originally a spring water and major Martu pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) camping site, at the turn of the 20th century Kunawarritji was converted to 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 such as Bugai’s. Bugai grew up, walked and hunted primarily around Punmu, Kunawarritji and Kun Kun (Kuny-Kuny), and as a young woman travelled up and down large tracts of the 1850km long Canning Stock Route, where she and her husband met and walked with cattle drovers. 

Long before colonial history entered this Country, however, other stories dominated this 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. Beginning in Roebourne on the west coast of Western Australia, the story morphs in its movement eastward across the land, following a group of women as they walk, dance, and even fly from waterhole to waterhole. As they travelled the women left markers in the landscape and create landforms that remain to this day. During the entirety of their journey the women are pursued by a lustful old man, Yurla, although interactions with other animals, groups of men, and spirit beings are also chronicled in the narrative.

The Minyipuru travelled to Kunawarritji from Nyipily (Nyipil, Nibil, Canning Stock Route Well 34), and transformed themselves into a distinctive group of trees that remain in the area between these two sites. From Kunawarritji Yurla followed the sisters to Pangkapirni, where he finally caught one of the women. 

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.

 Kunawarritji is Bugai’s home today, and the place where she first began painting her Country. As is clearly expressed in her account, for Bugai Kunawarritji is her ngurra (home Country, camp).

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Wurnpurl tali

This painting depicts tali (sandhills) in the artist’s country. Tali are a dominant feature in the western desert landscape, where Martu people live.

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Pulykarti

Pulykarti is in Karlamilyi (also known as Rudall River National Park) in Warnman country, the artist is a Warnman lady. This is good country for hunting marlu (kangaroo) and for gathering minyarra (bush onions) and other foods.

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Tuwa around Kunawarritji

Pija was born in the desert, near Kunawarritji Community (also known as Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route). This artwork illustrates the sandhills and the vegetation that grows in the desert around Kunawarritji.

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Untitled

This painting represents an area in Bugai’s ngurra (home country), where she lived and travelled extensively throughout the pujiman (nomadic bush) era with her family. She travelled from what is now Balfour Downs Station, where she was born, all around the Parnngurr area and up and down the Canning Stock Route as far as Kunawarritji. Kunawarritji is also known as well 33 and is now her home community. Bugai has extensive knowledge of this large tract of land, and loves to paint and tell the stories for her country.

Depicted are physical elements of Martu Country, such as the dominant tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and water sources. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, with many important jukurrpa (dreamtime stories) chronicling the creation of these landmarks. In the past the Martu lived nomadically, moving from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. They would traverse very large distances annually, visiting specific areas in the dry and wet season depending on the availability of water. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of country creating a larger diversity of plant and animal life.

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Untitled

This is Pukina’s 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.  Pukina’s ngurra encompasses the Country to the North and East of Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33), where he and his family walked during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era.

Portrayed in this work are features of Pukina’s ngurra, such as the striking salt lakes, permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources he camped at with his extended family. These include Nyukuwarta, Jamparri, Matakurlu, Marlakajarra, Jilankujarra, Nyunturru, Yunapayi, Kun Kun (Kuny-kuny), Parlkarraparlkarr, and Wakalpuka. 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.