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Puntawarri

Puntawarri is an important cultural area located on the middle stretches of the Canning Stock Route and east of the Jigalong Aboriginal Community. It is also the site of a now abandoned community, and a rockhole, waterhole, creek and lake. Puntawarri’s close proximity to Jigalong Mission (now Jigalong Aboriginal community) made it a popular site for Martu to visit and camp at over weekends during the ‘mission days’. 

For many Martu, Jigalong Mission was the site 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 Martu were reunited with family members that had already moved in from the desert.

The waterhole at Puntawarri is said to be populated by several kinds of ancestral jila (snake), however the site is best known for its association with the Ngayurnangalku, fearsome ancestral cannibal beings. During the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) the Ngayurnangalku came together from all over the desert, first stopping near Puntawarri on their travels to Kumpupirntily (Kumpupintily, Lake Disappointment). At Kumpupirntily, they had a big 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 to the eastern Ngayurnangalku on the red sandhills at Puntawarri, where she continues to live today as the ‘big mummy’ Ngayurnangalku. 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.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Heather Samson

Community: Jigalong

Biography:

“I was born out at Jigalong Mission and grew up in mission with my families. I went to school there right up to year 7. Finished then and worked around the community for a while as a single lady. I worked in the school for a little while then I worked in the clinic for 4 years, I did a lot of things like taking temperatures when people got sick and doing first aid on them as well. Then I went on to meet my partner. We got married and went to live on the station Yalleen near Pannawonica. We were working up and down, Belfer downs and Yalleen. We had kids then, I looked after my oldest sisters daughter and took her as my own and grew her up, then I had my own. Philipa first then Anthony and Caleb and Tanya and I adopted Elton, as they grew old enough to go back to the community  I wanted to take them there they didn’t know any of my families coz they grew up in the station. So we went back to Jigalong to be with the families so they know them then.

It was good to take them back, back in the school because I need them to have a good education. We settled down my partner was a pastoral manager for wallakanya (the whole big area) and I use to help him doing station works Billinooka and Walgun and Jigalong pastoral leases looking after the cattle there. Branding them and feeding them with a lot of hays, we use to ride down to Midland to sell the cattle on the community truck. It was really hard getting all the cattle in one single truck we use to get a cattle train to. I was doing the paper work for all that work.

I remember in Yalleen there is one big tree covered in those ants and they light up they light up like they are on fire at night time. Beautiful. That place is next to Port Hedland and Indee Station side.

 I been doing a lot of charcoal drawings and bark painting in Jigalong. I learnt charcoal in school I love that it’s easy you sketch maybe a tree and you can always put the shadings on it using your thumbs and even on the clouds.

Now I’m painting with Martumili which I really love, when im in town I paint. I paint about seven sisters and water holes and my ngurra (home Country, camp), my homelands all around Jigalong, Puntawarrie around Parnngurr around Yulpul area.”

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