August 2022

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Ngurra Wild Flowers

This is Ngarga’s Country- her ‘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. 

Ngarga’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around the Percival Lakes region as a young girl, travelling with her mother, siblings, and extended family. She lived nomadically before her family was persuaded to move to Jigalong Mission in 1963 by staff from the Native Welfare Department in 1963. Hers was one of the last families to leave the desert.

Portrayed in this work are features of Ngarga’s ngurra, such as the striking salt lakes, dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. These include Wirnpa, Yimiri, Jaramarra, Kurturarra, Karily-karily, Kiriwirri, Kupankurlu, Linyjalangu, Ngurtukurangu, and Milkarra. 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

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Dockers Oval Fremantle

This is Jatarr’s Country- her ‘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. 

Jatarr’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. At this time Jatarr travelled nomadically with her own and other family groups. The Country they traversed encompassed an enormous tract of land, all around the Karlamily (Rudall River) region and through to Tiwa (Canning Stock Route Well 26) .

Jatarr was born at Jartarrangara. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around Pangkartal, Yalpalpa, Walirrlirri, Yanytikuji, Wartararra, Tintinmarran, Pulikati, Pimurlu, Raarki (Canning Stock Route Well 27), and Tiwa. Her family continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s. 

Portrayed in this work are features of Jatarr’s ngurra, such as the hills, gorges and valleys, warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. 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.

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Bush Tucker

Depicted in this work are traditional types of bush tucker, their habitats, and their related hunting and gathering methods. 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. Whilst desert life has moved away from mobile hunter-gatherer subsistence throughout the course of the twentieth century, bush tucker continues to be a significant component of the modern Martu diet. Hunting and gathering bush tucker remains equally valuable as an important cultural practice that is passed on intergenerationally. Though hunting and gathering implements have been modernised, methods of harvesting, tracking and the use of fire burning to drive animals from their retreats are still commonly practiced today. 

Typically, animals hunted for their kuwiyi (meat) include kirti-kirti (euro kangaroo) and marlu (plains kangaroo), parnajarrpa (sand goanna), kipara (Australian bustard, bush turkey) and karlaya (emu). Lunki (witchetty grub) and wuukurta (honey ants) are dug from tree and bush trunks, or from underground nests. Popular mayi (plant food) includes minyarra (bush onion), collected from small, grass like plants; root vegetables dug from underground such as kulyu and mata (types of bush potato); and seeds such as kalaru (samphire, salt bush), yuwinyji, and marnkalpa (spinifex species). Jawirli (quondong), wamurla (bush tomatoes), jinyjiwirrily (wild gooseberry), ngaputa (melon), and karlkula (bush banana) are some of the most popular bush fruits. These are often collected in the wantajarra (cool season) and tuulpara (spring) months, along with juri (sweet) botanical gums and wama (nectar), obtained from various plant species. 

Traditional tools used for hunting and gathering bush tucker were carved from wanari (mulga), mulunturu (desert oak), yurungkura (river red gum) and mijarrpa (bloodwoods), and included kurlata (spears), jurna (hitting stick), karli (boomerangs), wana (digging-sticks), piti (timber bowls used for carrying food and water), and jiwa (grinding stones for grinding seeds into flour). While carved objects retain enormous social and ceremonial importance in Martu life, they are no longer used for hunting and gathering.

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Nyurnma

Martu artists paint Country in all it’s different seasonal stages. Important to Martu, and to Martu Country, is the practice of waru (fire burning); a practice that assists with hunting, regenerates growth, and encourages greater diversity in plant and animal life. When Martu Country burns, mosaic fire scars are left on the Country, and patches of regeneration form a kind of mosaic pattern across the land. This is called nyurnma – burnt Country.  Waru is typically burnt in small, controlled areas, leaving a defined patchwork pattern of nyurnma in the land, across tali (sand hills), linyji (clay pans), parulyukurru (spinifex country) and pila (sandy plains). This patterning is clearly visible in Martumili Artists works, where they paint Country from an aerial perspective.

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Kumpupirntily (Kumpupintily, Lake Disappointment)

“Kumpupirntily (Kumpupintily, Lake Disappointment), that’s Ngayurnangalku (ancestral cannibal beings) camping ground. When you go up here to the station where I was born, all the cannibals were coming across through there. We were mustering cattle there and all these stones were round like a damper. My cousin told me all the Ngayurnangalku made these dampers : round ones everywhere!

The Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) were [also] walking across along Savory Creek down to Kumpupirntily. They camped on the way there.”

 – Miriam Atkins

Kumpupirntily lies within Miriam’s ngurra (home Country, camp), the area which she knew intimately and travelled extensively with her family in her youth. This a stark, flat and unforgiving expanse of blinding salt lake is surrounded by sand hills, and located in the Little Sandy and Gibson Desert of Western Australia. Kumpupirntily translates to ‘bladder burst’; the lake was formed when the bladder of the Jila Kujarra (Two Snakes) burst here. Jila Kujarra is one of the key Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives for the Martu. Though the story belongs to Warnman people, it is shared across the Western Desert with several other language groups. The narrative centres on the travels of two snakes as they are pursued by the Niminjarra, spiritual ancestors of the Warnman people. 

As Miriam states in her account, Kumpupirntily was also visited by the Minyipuru during the Jukurrpa period. Still later in the Jukurrpa period the Ngayurnangalku (ancestral cannibal beings) made Kumpupirntily their home, where they continue to remain today. For this reason Kumpupirntily is considered one of the most sacred and dangerous sites of the Western Desert. The Ngayurnangalku are fearsome ancestral cannibal beings said to resemble people in their appearance, except for their fangs and long, curved, knife like fingernails they use to catch and hold their human victims. Coming from Natawalu (Canning Stock Route Well 40) in the north, Mundiwinti (Mundawindi) in the west, and from the Country around Kiwirrkurra in the east, the Ngayurnangalku travelled across the desert, stopping near Puntawarri, at Jilukurru (Killagurra Springs, Canning Stock Route Well 17) and at Kupayura (Savory Creek) before finally reaching Kumpupirntily.

At Kumpupirntily, the Ngayurnangalku had a meeting to debate whether or not they would continue to live as cannibals, and eventually came to the decision to stop eating people. That night, a female baby cannibal was born. Following protocol, the baby also had to be consulted by the group. She determined that the Ngayurnangalku should continue to eat people. Her decision divided the group, and from this point the group from the east continued to live as ‘bad’ cannibals at Kumpupirntily, while the group from the west became ‘good’, thereafter consuming only animals. 

The cannibal Ngayurnangalku still live beneath the crust of Kumpupirntily lake in an underground world lit by their own sun. They surface only to feed on human flesh, coming in and out of the world we see through a small hill that acts as a gateway between worlds; Yapu Maparnpa (magical hill). Stored with the Ngayurnangalku in their underground world is an arsenal of maparnpa (holding power for sorcery) weapons, as well as deposits of pujurrpa (red ochre) that the Ngayurnangalku use to paint themselves with when they dance.

Several phenomena at Kumpupirntily act as a warning of the imminent appearance of the Ngayurnangalku; still skies, wilany (boomerang-shaped clouds), and the emergence of the parla-parla (type of lizard), smacking their mouths. The vigilance of the Martu as they travel in the Country around Kumpupirntily is so great that several other precautions are followed; fires are not lit, planes and helicopters are not flown directly over the area, and digging in the lake is strongly discouraged. All of these activities are believed to disturb the Ngayurnangalku, causing them to rise from their underground world. 

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Mirtikanya (Mujupunkanu, Watchpoint Hill)

“This one here is Watchpoint Hill near to Jigalong, with all the sandhills and the walyji (white gums). We got warla (lakes) there too. Jigalong is where I grew up.”

 – Helen Dale Simpson

Mirtikanya is a hill and claypan close to Balfour Downs Station and north of Jigalong Aboriginal community, where Dale continues to live today. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era, Mintikanya was primarily used as a camping site in the wantajarra (wet season), when the claypan filled with kapi (water).

Mirtikanya’s location close to Jigalong Mission made it a popular camping site for mission residents on the weekend. For many Martu Jigalong Mission was where their pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) lifestyle came to an end from the late 1940s as they transitioned to a life as stockmen and women working in cattle stations in the Pilbara region and beyond. In the wake of the extreme and prolonged drought of the 1960s, the last of the remaining pujimanpa (desert dwellers) were forced to move to missions like Jigalong, where a supply of food and water was assured. There, many were reunited with family members that had already moved in from the desert.

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Mungili Rock Holes

“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.

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Untitled

“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.

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Mungilli Rock Holes

“I was swimming there. Yeah, we go visit them a long time [ago]. We drink it, rain water from the rain. Big waterhole. It’s a fresh water, when the rain comes, fills it up. One for swimming and another rock hole for drinking.”

– Marlene Anderson

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. Marlene grew up in Mungilli, and as such it forms a significant part of her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp).This work depicts a rock hole within Marlene’s’ ngurra (home Country, camp), typically Marlene 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.