Papilija
Papilija is a yinta soak in Kulyakartu;
My grandmother and her sibling’s country.
They used to go there all the time.
Good kapi for drinking and yukarri (green) all around.
Lots of warta (trees).
Plenty bush tucker.
This painting is about the red desert sand in The Great Sandy Desert the hills and the mudflats. I love the colours of the desert.
This painting shows the Artists Grandfathers country where they used to walk around in circles searching for bush tucker and water from the waterholes. When our ancestors came out from the Canning Stock route, they used to see big mob of sand dunes and flowers.
This painting represents the rocky outcrop and all the different areas of claypans, and the dark area represents all the jurnga (sands) in the cool time, warri (translation needed). All the light yellowish colour represents the paru (spinifex).
I like to go out working with the rangers and all the elders, I go out Country with them and they show me all the places, all mapped out with GPS. We mark out all the other places for next time. Sometimes I go out in the rangers vehicle and walk around the country and look around for goanna holes. We try to keep an eye on the animals, [monitoring them,] look out for all the bilby and skinks and everything with the Nyangumarta rangers. I go in my spare time because I’m busy you know, I’m busy with my artwork and council meetings.
In the cool dry time, when it’s a little bit warm, and cool in the morning, that’s when we do the fire patch burning. When we doing it also depends on the wind, the warngal, which way its blowing. We do that because it’s a big part of controlled fired. Wild fires, we don’t want them, they destroy the animals and their living area, destroy the Country. We do it too for the regrowth. When I went back to Country a couple of weeks ago, all the burned up area had a little bit of regrowth after a little bit of rain.