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Matakurlu

Plenty tali (sandhills) here, other side of Punmu. My Country, I been there pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) time. 

 – Wokka Taylor

Matakurlu is a soak located between Punmu Aboriginal community and the Percival Lakes region of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. This site lies within Wokka’s ngurra (home Country, camp), the area which he knew intimately and travelled extensively with his family in his youth. As well as forming part of Wokka’s ngurra, Matakurlu features as a site in both the Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) and Wati Kujarra (Two Goanna Men) Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. 

Minyipuru is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Beginning in Roebourne on the west coast of Western Australia, the story morphs in its movement eastward across the land, following a group of women as they walk, dance, and even fly from waterhole to waterhole. As they travel the women camp, sing, wash, dance and gather food, leaving markers in the landscape and creating landforms that remain to this day, such as groupings of rocks and trees, grinding stones and seeds. During the entirety of their journey the women are pursued by a lustful old man, Yurla, although interactions with other animals, groups of men, and spirit beings are also chronicled in the narrative.

Wati Kujarra is an equally important Martu Jukurrpa narrative. The Wati Kujarra existed as half men, half goanna. They were responsible for the creation of many land features in Martu Country and beyond as they travelled, hunted and burned Country together. Wati Kujarra is a ngurlu (sacred, taboo) men’s story, and for this reason much of the content is only shared with initiated men.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Wokka Taylor

Language: Manyjilyjarra

Community: Parnngurr

Biography:

Wokka was born in the late 1940s at Kaljali waterhole in the Kulyakartu area; flat, grass Country in the far north of the Martu homelands and close to the Percival Lakes region. He is the middle brother to fellow Martumili Artists Muuki Taylor and Ngalangka Nola Taylor. Both Muuki and Wokka are highly regarded cultural leaders, and Ngalangka a skilled translator and cultural advisor. 

In his youth Wokka’s family seasonally travelled between the Kulyakartu and Percival Lakes regions depending on the availability of water and the corresponding cycles of plant and animal life on which hunting and gathering bush tucker was reliant. Generally they lived in Kulyakartu during the wet season, when its' claypans filled with rain, and the Percival Lakes during the dry season, when they could rely on the area’s many permanent soaks. They continued to live a pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) lifestyle until being collected from Balfour Downs Station and taken to Jigalong Mission in the 1960s. They were one of the last Martu families to leave the desert. 

At Jigalong Wokka married Kanu (Karnu) Nancy Taylor (dec.); the pair were inseparable through to her passing in 2019. From Jigalong the couple lived and worked together on several cattle stations throughout the Pilbara. Eventually they relocated with their family to Parnngurr Aboriginal community as foundational community members during the ‘Return to Country’ movement of the 1980’s. Wokka continues to live in Parnngurr today.

Wokka paints his ngurra (home Country, camp), the Country he walked as a young man; its animals, plants, waterholes and associated Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. His work has been exhibited widely across Australia.

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