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Wantili

Wantili, which forms the focus of much of Bugai’s work, is a large round jurnu (soak) and lyinji (claypan) near Well 25 on the Canning Stock Route. It lies close to Bugai’s birthplace, and is her ngurra (home country). The area is dominated by claypans surrounded by tuwa (sandhills). Following rain the typically dry claypans are filled with water, with the overflow from nearby waterholes flowing to Wantili. At that time, Wantili becomes an important place for obtaining fresh water for drinking and bathing. Wantili is significant for the fact that at this site Kartujarra, Manyjilyjarra, Putujarra and Warnman people would all come together for ceremonies. Manyjiwa (stones used by women for grinding seeds) from these times can still be found there today.

(As translated by Bugai’s grandson, Cyril Whyoulter) “Bugai always tells about Wantili because she grew up around Wantili. Her family would travel between Wantili, Kaalpa, Juntujuntu, Raarki, and Wuranu Wells along the Canning Stock Route. She paints around Wantili. She saw whitefellas there for the first time, Canning mob when they were travelling up and down the stock route with the bullock. She was a young girl walking around at Wantili. Big mob of people they been walking around there. Canning and his drovers were travelling, making the road. They were running away from those whitefellas, watching them from a long distance. She was a teenager when she was travelling around there with her four mothers and one daddy. They used to travel around in family groups, Bugai and Jakayu [Biljabu], and Jakayu’s nyupa (partner) Phillip Biljabu.” Bugai returned to the Wantili area as a young woman, when she worked driving cattle along the Stock Route.

Wantili is an incredibly important cultural site, ‘‘where the creation started.’ The jukurrpa (dreamtime narrative) related to the creation at Wantili are just for Martu, but the site is open and anyone can go there. Wantili is also one of the many sites featured in the epic Minyipuru (Seven Sisters) jukurrpa. The story follows the movement of a group of women travelling all the way across the desert, beginning at Roebourne on the coast of Western Australia, as they are pursued by Yurla, a lustful old man. As the women travelled they stopped to rest at many sites to eat, dance, rest and sing, on the way leaving behind an assortment of articles that became formations in the land. The sisters rested at Wantili before throwing seeds, then continued their journey on to Tiwa, Juntujuntu, and then Pangkapini, where they finally escaped Yurla by flying into the sky to become the Pleaides constellation of stars.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Bugai Whyoulter

Language: Kartujarra

Community: Kunawarritji

Biography:

Bugai is a Kartujarra woman and a senior custodian of the lands surrounding Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). She was born in the 1940s at Pukayiyirna, on present day Balfour Downs Station, though her parents soon travelled northward with her through Jigalong and Nullagine toward Kunawarritji. She grew up, walked and hunted with her parents, younger sister Pinyirr Nancy Patterson (dec.), and extended family, primarily travelling around the eastern side of the Karlamily (Rudall River) region and along the midsection of the Canning Stock Route, from Kartarru (Canning Stock Route Well 24) to Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). As a young woman Bugai travelled up and down large tracts of the 1850km long Canning Stock Route, where she and her husband met and walked with cattle drovers. 

In 1963 Bugai’s family encountered the surveyor Len Beadell, who was then grading roads for the Woomera Missile Testing Range. He gave the family flour, which Bugai was able to use to show her relatives how to cook a simple damper (flat bread). Bugai had herself been taught how to bake with flour during her earlier interactions with drovers in her travels on the Stock Route. Shortly afterward Bugai, her husband and the extended family group she was with at the time together decided to move to Jigalong Mission. There they joined many other relatives that had already travelled in from the desert following a prolonged and severe drought. They were some of the last Martu to leave the desert.

From Jigalong Bugai moved to Aboriginal communities in Strelley, Punmu, and Parnngurr before relocating to Kunawarritji Aboriginal community in more recent years, where she continues to live today. There she was taught to paint by renowned artists Nora Nungabar (Nyangapa) (dec.) and Nora Wompi (dec.). The three women painted together as often as possible. For a long time Bugai wove baskets, watching the other women painting. Later, she explained that she had been uncertain how to begin.


Today Bugai is considered one of most established Martumili Artists, and is known as a master of colour, gesture and subtlety. Her self reflective works are layered with distinctively delicate brushmarks, with subtle colour changes representing landmarks, water sources, and desert flora. Bugai's work was selected for the 2019, 2018 and 2013 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, the 2012 Bankwest Contemporary Art Prize and Hedland Art Award, and the 2010 Western Australian Indigenous Art Award. She has held regular solo exhibitions, and her work has been acquired by several major institutions in Australia, including The National Museum of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and Queensland Art Gallery’s Gallery of Modern Art.

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