This is an artwork about a dancing Mimih. It’s based on a song line from Korlobididah. My fathers eldest brother used to sing this song line and Unkle Dennis he was a dancer. My real father, Jacky was a dancer as well and he was from Korlobididah.
“Mungili rock hole, big rock hole, big country. I never see that place. My mother born, her and grandmother walk through there, they tell me story. Mother born there in the Country Mungili, walking through the bush. There is a camping spot, camping in bush – bush, bush, bush [points at painting] this is the lake Country and goes through there.”
– Matthew Mintern Smith
Mungilli is a small outstation community located just off the Eagle Highway in Western Australia, approximately 430 kilometres north east of Wiluna and 250 kilometres north of Warburton. Matthew grew up near Mungilli, and as such it forms a significant part of his ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp).This work depicts a rock hole within Matthew’s ngurra (home Country, camp), typically Matthew depicts this site with a central large circular form, surrounded by satellite circles for water bodies.
During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) 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 (Dreaming) narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability. This encyclopedic knowledge extends even to the nature and movement of arterial waterways, and 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.
“Mungili rock hole, big rock hole, big country. I never see that place. My mother born, her and grandmother walk through there, they tell me story. Mother born there in the Country Mungili, walking through the bush. There is a camping spot, camping in bush – bush, bush, bush [points at painting] this is the lake Country and goes through there.”
– Matthew Mintern Smith
Mungilli is a small outstation community located just off the Eagle Highway in Western Australia, approximately 430 kilometres north east of Wiluna and 250 kilometres north of Warburton. Matthew grew up near Mungilli, and as such it forms a significant part of his ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp).This work depicts a rock hole within Matthew’s ngurra (home Country, camp), typically Matthew depicts this site with a central large circular form, surrounded by satellite circles for water bodies.
During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) 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 (Dreaming) narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability. This encyclopedic knowledge extends even to the nature and movement of arterial waterways, and 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.
“Mungili rock hole, big rock hole, big country. I never see that place. My mother born, her and grandmother walk through there, they tell me story. Mother born there in the Country Mungili, walking through the bush. There is a camping spot, camping in bush – bush, bush, bush [points at painting] this is the lake Country and goes through there.”
– Matthew Mintern Smith
Mungilli is a small outstation community located just off the Eagle Highway in Western Australia, approximately 430 kilometres north east of Wiluna and 250 kilometres north of Warburton. Matthew grew up near Mungilli, and as such it forms a significant part of his ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp).This work depicts a rock hole within Matthew’s ngurra (home Country, camp), typically Matthew depicts this site with a central large circular form, surrounded by satellite circles for water bodies.
During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) 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 (Dreaming) narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability. This encyclopedic knowledge extends even to the nature and movement of arterial waterways, and 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.
“Mungili rock hole, big rock hole, big country. I never see that place. My mother born, her and grandmother walk through there, they tell me story. Mother born there in the Country Mungili, walking through the bush. There is a camping spot, camping in bush – bush, bush, bush [points at painting] this is the lake Country and goes through there.”
– Matthew Mintern Smith
Mungilli is a small outstation community located just off the Eagle Highway in Western Australia, approximately 430 kilometres north east of Wiluna and 250 kilometres north of Warburton. Matthew grew up near Mungilli, and as such it forms a significant part of his ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp).This work depicts a rock hole within Matthew’s ngurra (home Country, camp), typically Matthew depicts this site with a central large circular form, surrounded by satellite circles for water bodies.
During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) 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 (Dreaming) narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability. This encyclopedic knowledge extends even to the nature and movement of arterial waterways, and 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.
“I was just telling a story about honey ants looking for foods to make feeding her children. That’s the mummy one right there and the daddy one and the babies. That’s the plants that one. I put in a love heart because they love food and love looking at the butterflies.”
– Oweesha Biljabu
Oweesha is one of our youngest Artists, she started painting with Martumili when she was 9 years old. As a young girl Oweesha was, and continues to be, inspired to paint by a family of well-established Martu Artists including Jakayu Biljabu (great grand-mother) and Owen John Biljabu (father). As the practice is handed down generations so too are stories and connection to Country:
“I’m really happy when I’m painting my Country. I’m proud as I follow my Country, I’m holding on to my Country. That’s my water in the East. I’m painting my Country. It’s not someone else’s, it’s my Country. I’m looking after my Country. I’m showing my family the Country. I feel privileged that I can see it. As I watch my children I’m really happy for them. I’m watching them all while they’re working on the Country. I’m so proud of them. I’m looking after them and now I feel fulfilled.”
– Jakayu Biljabu as translated by Kanyirninpa 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.
“Rainy day painting in my Country in the desert Kunawarritji. You can smell the desert fresh air”
– Peggy Gibbs
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.
“My father took me there to see where he was bathing and drinking, long time ago in the 80’s or 90’s. Drive one day, not far from Kunawarritji, 30 or 40km, all the family.”
– Peggy Gibbs
Tali-yampujarra is a tali (sandhill) about 30km west of Kunawarritji, and is a location visited by Peggy when she was growing up, as such it forms a significant part of her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp).
The traditional lands of the Martu people encompass the Great Sandy Desert and Rudall River regions of Western Australia, an enormous tract dominated by distinctive red tali, or tuwa (sandhills). These sandhills present an unforgiving landscape; sparse vegetation covers a seemingly never ending expanse of dunes, and yet these lands and the location of resources within them was known intimately by its pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) inhabitants. At this time, Martu traversed very large distances annually in small family groups, moving from water source to water source through the harsh desert landscape with incredible stamina and resourcefulness. Travel was often undertaken at night, and when travelling during the day, Martu wore yakipiri (woven bark sandals) to protect their feet from the hot desert sand.
Depicted in this work are tali and sources of kapi (water) within the artists’ ngurra (home Country, camp). 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 (Dreaming) narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability. For thousands of years, Aboriginal people have typically represented water with circular forms, and tali with linear groupings in rock art, sand drawings, and now contemporary paintings.
Deborah Wurrkidj is a Kuninjku artist from the Kurulk clan whose country lies around the outstation of Mumeka in central Arnhem Land.
In this design she has depicted man-djarduk (red bush apples) – a sweet, crisp bush food that is a favourite to collect.
Man-djarduk fruits in kurrung and kunumeleng seasons, the build-up and first rains seasons.