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Jukurrpa

The term Jukurrpa is often translated in English as the ‘dreaming’, or ‘dreamtime’. It refers generally to the period in which the world was created by ancestral beings, who assumed both human and nonhuman forms. These beings shaped what had been a formless landscape; creating waters, plants, animals, and people. At the same time they provided cultural protocols for the people they created, as well as rules for interacting with the natural environment. At their journey’s end, the ancestral beings transformed themselves into important waters, hills, rocks, and even constellations.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Timille Whitby

Biography:

 

I was born in Geraldton and stayed there for a couple of years. We moved to Perth, then my mum got a job with my dad to be dorm parents for the boys at Karalundi Aboriginal Education Centre, so we moved there. My mum, she was a Seventh Day Adventist, see? My dad would drive out to the communities like Jigalong, he’d go to the Warburton Ranges, Linster, Leonora and Wiluna to pick up the kids and bring them back to Karlundi for their schooling. Me and my brothers and two sisters grew up with those boys like they were our own brothers. We all went to school together and would take them on camps together. We’d take them back home for holidays too. I went with my dad on a couple of the trips.

 

I learnt a lot in my young days there. We used to go digging for honey ants, bush sweet potato, bardi, and parngarra with the elder ladies. They taught me how to make baskets too, with fishing wire and other bits.

 

After we grew up we moved back to Geraldton and I had my daughter, who was born premature. We decided to move toward the heat to help ope up my daughter’s lungs, so we went back up to Port Hedland and then Newman. My mum fell in love with Newman because it was close to the bush life, and because my uncle Joshua Booth and other family members lived there. My mum opened up all the houses at the back of the hospital in Newman for the FIFO doctors, and they named a street after her. She liked to help all the Aboriginal people.

 

Art is something for me to do. I love art, and I’m happy they opened up the new Martumili centre. Art is in our background and in my family, it’s in my blood. I always feel so relaxed once I’m painting.

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