Kungkarrangkalpa (Seven Sisters)
‘Kungkarrangkalpa’ (Seven Sisters / Pleiades) is one of the most significant Tjukurrpa across the Western and Central Deserts. It is part of a vast international story, with versions existing in many First Nations cultures around the world. In the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, the story is anchored in specific places, events, and ancestral movements — each community holding their own knowledge, rights, and responsibilities for particular stretches of the songline.
Maureen Douglas paints this story through her own family lineage. She is the daughter of senior law woman and painter Angilyiya Mitchell, who holds deep cultural authority for Kuru Ala, one of the most important women’s sites connected to the Seven Sisters. Through her mother, Maureen inherits the right to paint this part of the Tjukurrpa, depicting both the physical landscape and the ancestral journey that shaped it.
Story
In this chapter of the Tjukurrpa, the Seven Sisters are travelling across country, continually escaping the relentless pursuit of Wati Nyiru (Orion), who is the wrong skin group to marry them. Nyiru follows them from place to place, using magic to transform himself into tempting foods — kampurarrpa (bush tomato), yirli (wild fig), even a quandong tree — hoping the sisters will stop and fall into his trap. But the sisters are clever and quick; they see through his disguises and outwit him again and again.
Eventually Nyiru grows angry and uses magic to make the oldest sister sick, thinking he can grab her while the others are distracted. Instead, the sisters rescue her, carrying her to the next shelter to rest and gather strength. Some versions of the story also describe the youngest sister being captured and escaping with help from her big sister.
When the chase becomes too much, the sisters leave the earth and travel into the sky, becoming the constellation we know today as the Pleiades. Nyiru follows them into the sky — still chasing, still too late.
Kuru Ala – The Site
This painting focuses on Kuru Ala — known as “two eyes” — a powerful women’s site in Maureen’s grandmother’s country, south of Papulankutja (Blackstone). The caves and rock formations at this place are physical evidence of the Tjukurrpa events that happened there.
Maureen describes the site and story as it has been handed to her:
“This is my Grandmother’s country. At Kuru Ala you can see the circles in the cave — that’s from this story. The young girls turning into young women. The bigger circles are the women already. They were travelling for food and they saw that man had taken the big sister, so they took her to the next cave to rest and get better. You can see Nyiru sitting there. The rockhole, Kuru Ala, is down the bottom — they drank that water in the early days. We still drink this water today.”
About This Painting
Maureen maps the movement of the sisters across this important stretch of country — the resting places, the caves, the water, and Nyiru watching from nearby. The circles, pathways, and forms reference both ceremonial knowledge and the living landscape as it exists today.
