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Kunawarritji Rockholes
“These are the waterholes in Kunawarrtiji. My aunty [Jugarda Dulce Gibbs (dec.)], she told me to do circles for the rockholes around Kunawarritiji and sandhills. That’s what she taught me. I was doing bush tucker and now I want to paint about the rockholes.”
– Annabel Peterson
Kunawarritji is an important site in the Great Sandy Desert where multiple stories and histories intersect. The area forms part of Annabel’s ngurra (home Country, camp) through her family. Originally a spring water and major Martu pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) camping site, at the turn of the 20th century Kunawarritji was converted into a well along the Canning Stock Route. Each year throughout the 1930-50s, the well became a site of contact between the drovers, their cattle, and desert families.
Long before colonial history entered this Country, however, other stories dominated the site. Primarily, Kunawarritji features in the Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) Jukurrpa (Dreaming). Minyipuru is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Today, Kunawarritji is a site of return, a place where people came back to continue their life in the desert with the formation of Kunawarritji Aboriginal community in the early 1980s. The community’s cultural significance endures, with the population swelling up to 1000 during cultural business.
As Annabel states in her account, this work depicts the waterholes and tali (sandhills) in the area surrounding Kunawarritji, both represented with circular forms. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) period, knowledge of water sources was critical for survival, and today Martu Country is still defined in terms of the location and type of water. Each of the hundreds of claypans, rockholes, waterholes, soaks and springs found in the Martu desert homelands is known through real life experience and the recounting of Jukurrpa narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability.
Transfer of cultural knowledge through visual arts is an important way for Martu artists to keep their culture strong. Younger Martu artists like Annabel typically begin painting with their parents, grandparents and extended family, thus fostering an organic process of learning, not only about painting techniques, but also specific locations, family histories, traditional ways of life, bush tucker and Jukurrpa. Senior Martu artists also often paint together where a story of mutual significance is conveyed, and in this way have produced many of the stunning, large scale collaborative works for which Martumili Artists are most well-known.
