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Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters)

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. 

Minyipuru, or Jakulyukulyu (Seven Sisters) is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Relayed in song, dance, stories and paintings, Minyipuru serves as a creation narrative, a source of information relating to the physical properties of the land, and an embodiment of Aboriginal cultural laws. When Martumili Artists was established in 2005, this was the first Jukurrpa story the artists agreed to paint for a broader public. 

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.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: Gladys Kuru Bidu

Language: Manyjilyjarra

Community: Punmu

Biography:

“Wantili is my place, where I was born. It’s a place where everyone was living – it’s all of their ngurra (home). It’s the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) of that place. All those claypans, a place where everyone comes together for ceremony and gatherings, all meeting with different families. I went there with my aunt [Jakayu Biljabu] (dec.) and my sister [Kumpaya Girgirba] - they told me the story of where I was born, in pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) times. We walked all over the place, I was just a little one.”

- Gladys Bidu Kuru 

Gladys is a Karimarra woman. She was born near Wantili and speaks Manjilyajarra. Gladys and her family were picked up when she was a baby in Yulpul and taken first to Parngurr, then to Jigalong Mission, where she attended the mission school. From there she travelled with her family to Strelley Station, and then to Camp 61, an outstation on Bilanooka Station. “We stayed there with the old people, so many old people they set up a Martu school there” she says, “Then we heard Martu were going back to their homeland, their ngurra, so then we came to Punmu with those old people, Mr Lane and the other old people.” Settling in Punmu during the Return to Country movement of the early 1980s, Gladys assisted with the establishment of the Punmu School in the Community’s bough shelter when she was looking after her sister’s children.

Today Gladys is an accomplished teacher and respected cultural advisor for the Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa Martu ranger program. She also and works with Punmu School as a senior cultural and linguistics adviser and board member. “I speak on behalf of Martu as a board member of the school and KJ and with Martumili. I am a cultural adviser and language adviser supporting people with interpreting, recording, going out bush and going to conferences for language. The school has two way learning: Martu way and English. Helping people to be strong in both ways. It’s a lot of travel- many, many places.” 

Gladys was taught to paint in Jigalong by her aunt, renowned senior artist Jakayu Biljabu (dec.), and the two would regularly paint together. Gladys paints her ngurra (home Country, camp); Wantili, a large round jurnu (soak) and linyji (claypan) near Well 25 on the Canning Stock Route. The area is dominated by claypans surrounded by tuwa (sandhills). Nyilangkurr, a prominent yapu (hill) is located on the edge of the claypan. Following rains 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, Putijarra and Warnman people would all come together for ceremonies during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era. Many jiwa (stones used by women for grinding seeds) from these times can still be found there today. 

 

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