July 2025

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Wanti Yuu

“It’s pretty much the line of thought of my family. So that’s my daughter and then my granny- ‘Nan Nan’ they call her- and then my mum, SW. And that’s my nanna Lorna. It’s pretty much the line of where I’m from. That connection and family tree.”

– Sylvia Wilson

This work is one of a series by Sylvia Wilson entitled ‘Mum, The Boss, My Daughter and the Wanti (Woman, Girl).’ As Sylvia explains, the work is both a depiction of, and attribute to, the women in her family heritage.

The Martu term for family, walytja, encapsulates a broader idea of relatedness that permeates every aspect of life. The Martu four-section kinship system determines a person as belonging to either the Purungu, Milangka, Panaka or Karrimarra skin group, and was created by the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) ancestors.

This system not only defines relationships, it also establishes a framework for expectations and obligations, and extends the importance of family far beyond mere blood or marriage ties. Family is not limited to blood connections; it encompasses all relationships within the entire community, forming a network of relationships that was crucial to survival during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era, and that remains fundamental to Martu life today. The kinship system allows everyone to know what expectations one person can have in relation to another, and means that familial terms and relationships are present between any two individuals, whether or not they are related by blood.

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Wanti Yuu

“It’s pretty much the line of thought of my family. So that’s my daughter and then my granny- ‘Nan Nan’ they call her- and then my mum, SW. And that’s my nanna Lorna. It’s pretty much the line of where I’m from. That connection and family tree.”

– Sylvia Wilson

This work is one of a series by Sylvia Wilson entitled ‘Mum, The Boss, My Daughter and the Wanti (Woman, Girl).’ As Sylvia explains, the work is both a depiction of, and attribute to, the women in her family heritage.

The Martu term for family, walytja, encapsulates a broader idea of relatedness that permeates every aspect of life. The Martu four-section kinship system determines a person as belonging to either the Purungu, Milangka, Panaka or Karrimarra skin group, and was created by the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) ancestors.

This system not only defines relationships, it also establishes a framework for expectations and obligations, and extends the importance of family far beyond mere blood or marriage ties. Family is not limited to blood connections; it encompasses all relationships within the entire community, forming a network of relationships that was crucial to survival during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era, and that remains fundamental to Martu life today. The kinship system allows everyone to know what expectations one person can have in relation to another, and means that familial terms and relationships are present between any two individuals, whether or not they are related by blood.

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Jiman

Jiman is a rockhole located at the south-eastern border of the Karlamilyi (Rudall River) region, and kakarra (east) of Parnngurr Aboriginal Community. Jiman is situated in a rocky area adjacent to Kukurrnyina (Harbutt Ranges). The Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) stopped at Jiman as they journeyed between Parnngurr and Kaalpa (Kalypa, Canning Stock Route Well 23). They sat down here and made a waru (fire) before they flew away again.

This is Ngamaru’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. 

Ngamaru’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era. At this time Ngamaru travelled nomadically with her own and other family groups, most notably the Biljabu and Whyoulter families. 

Ngamaru was born at Martilirri (Canning Stock Route Well 22). She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around Wikiri, Rarrki (Canning Stock Route Well 27), Wantili (Warntili, Canning Stock Route Well 25), Pitu, Nyilangkurr and Nyinyari. She 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 Ngamaru’s ngurra, such as the striking salt lakes, dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources Ngamaru and her family camped at. These include Julyjarru, Juntiwa, Jaturti, Karanyal (Canning Stock Route Well 20), Martilirri (Canning Stock Route Well 22), Kaalpa (Canning Stock Route Well 23), Kartarru (Blue Hills Station, Canning Stock Route Well 24), Wantili (Canning Stock Route Well 25, Tiwa (Canning Stock Route Well 26), Rarrki (Canning Stock Route Well 27), Warla-warla (Canning Stock Route Well 31), Kulilu, Kunapila, Nyilangkurr, Parnngurr, Pitu, Purn, Wangkakalu, Wikiri, Yiranang, and Yulpu. 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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Kumpupirntily (Lake Disappointment)

“That’s Kumpupirntily- Lake Disappointment. The cannibals live underneath the lake there. It’s a salt lake. That’s all the ladies sitting around the lake, sitting around the claypans in the lake. That’s our Country; mine and Yunkurra’s [Billy Atkins’] Country.”

– Judith Anya Samson

Kumpupirntily lies within Anya’s ngurra (home Country, camp) through her family. 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. 

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. 

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.