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Jilinybeng
In this artwork Peggy has depicted a bush tucker known as “bush cucumber”. This plant grows as a vine and you have to search for it amongst the grasses. The bush cucumber, more like a bush lemon fruit, is grey/green in colour and ripens in the wet season. It is collected either from the vine directly or on the ground where the fruit has dropped. “This fruit can be eaten when both unripe and ripe, but if you eat too much it makes your tongue bright red and hurts your lips.”
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Djomi
There are two Dreaming ladies at Bábbarra billabong – Djómi and Bábbarra. These two are sisters: one freshwater ‘mermaid’ and one saltwater one. Big long head, big stomach and very skinny legs that Bábbarra.
Their mother is the crocodile who lives in the Bábbarra billabong.
Both sisters will give people babies through the drinking water at Bábbarra. That’s why men stay away and Bábbarra is a sacred women’s site. Too strong our Dreaming – even men can get that baby in their tummies!
When it rains at Bábbarra, or when a cyclone comes, it’s because our Dreaming is too strong. There are lots of women spirits. When the storms come, the spirits go in the underground rivers and hide safely.
If you go fishing in our country, you have to be careful not to catch the Bábbarra and Djómi ‘mermaids’. Some people catch them thinking they are barramundi, but they are actually the ‘mermaid’ spirits. You will know, because they have white hair.
Lena Djabibba, djungkay (mother’s country and ceremonial manager of Bábbarra) and Joy Garlbin (landowner for Bábbarra)
Text courtesy of Bábbarra Women’s Centre copyright 2017
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Ngangiy (Mud-mussels)
This Painting depicts Ngangiy (Mud mussels) a type of shellfish; a mussel, a commonly gathered clam found in the mangrove mud and characteristically coated with coralline growth and stained partly black. Polymesoda coaxans (Corbiculidae). This plentiful shellfish is collected in the dried out floodplains, only a small sliver of the shell is exposed as it buries itself in mud, You need good eyes to find this delicious bush food.
111982108951
Ngangiy (Mud-mussels)
This Painting depicts Ngangiy (Mud mussels) a type of shellfish; a mussel, a commonly gathered clam found in the mangrove mud and characteristically coated with coralline growth and stained partly black. Polymesoda coaxans (Corbiculidae). This plentiful shellfish is collected in the dried out floodplains, only a small sliver of the shell is exposed as it buries itself in mud, You need good eyes to find this delicious bush food.
111582109397
Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33)-
“We went to Kunawarritji. We went out to see the waterholes with Kumpaya [Girgirba], my aunty – my dad’s sister. It’s the first time I went in a chopper to see the waterholes. Kumpaya take me to show me the waterholes, show me my father’s Country. It was good. I went first to see the waterholes and then I start painting. The waterholes are my father’s Country.
We go out there sometimes, but now I’m doing a lot of painting there in Punmu. I was learning to make a painting now, with the old people. But they all passed away now. And they told me, ‘you can do you own Country, your dad’s Country’. And I made a couple of paintings of my father’s Country. They were telling me, ‘just do your father’s Country, Kunawarritji’.”
– Debra Thomas
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 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. 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.
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Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33)
“We went to Kunawarritji. We went out to see the waterholes with Kumpaya [Girgirba], my aunty – my dad’s sister. It’s the first time I went in a chopper to see the waterholes. Kumpaya take me to show me the waterholes, show me my father’s Country. It was good. I went first to see the waterholes and then I start painting. The waterholes are my father’s Country.
We go out there sometimes, but now I’m doing a lot of painting there in Punmu. I was learning to make a painting now, with the old people. But they all passed away now. And they told me, ‘you can do you own Country, your dad’s Country’. And I made a couple of paintings of my father’s Country. They were telling me, ‘just do your father’s Country, Kunawarritji’.”
– Debra Thomas
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 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. 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.
111582109393
Rawa
Rawa is a soak and spring located along the eastern edge of the large salt lake, Nyayartakujarra (Lake Dora), and at the western edge of Punmu Aboriginal community, 670km northeast of Newman. Surrounding Rawa are numerous fresh water soaks and the permanent red tali (sandhills) typical of the area.
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 (Dreaming) narratives.
Rawa features as a resting place for the Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) during the Jukurrpa period. Minyipuru is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Relayed in song, dance, stories and paintings, Minyipuru serves as a creation narrative, a source of information relating to the physical properties of the land, and an embodiment of Aboriginal cultural laws. Beginning in Roebourne on the west coast of Western Australia, the story morphs in its movement eastward across the land, following the women as they walk, dance, and even fly from waterhole to waterhole. As they travel the women camp, sing, wash, dance and gather food, leaving markers in the landscape and creating landforms that remain to this day, such as groupings of rocks and trees, grinding stones and seeds. 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.
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Wirlarra (Wilarra)
Wirlarra, the site depicted in this painting, lies on the eastern edge of a large salt lake, Nyayartakujarra (Lake Dora), near Punmu Aboriginal community. A distinctive group of small salt water pools are clustered together here. The water from these pools is known for its’ powerful healing properties, and the pools are still visited today by Martu to bathe cuts and sores.
Wirlarra is also a term for ‘moon’ in Manyjilyjarra, and through the site’s Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narrative, the site is united with the moon in significance. It is said that at Wirlarra, the moon called to a family of dingoes; a mother, father and their large litter of dingo pups. The dingoes gathered at Wirlarra, where the moon cared for them and created a windbreak for the family to shelter. Here the dingoes scratched at the surface of the salt lake and created the cluster of salt water pools located there today. They lay down there. After a time, the dingoes continued travelling eastward toward the rising moon until they reached Kinyu (Well 35 on the Canning Stock Route), where they remained until all of the dingo pups had grown up. From Kinyu the family travelled further east with the moon.