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Nyijil Nyijil

Tutujarti trees (desert walnut tree) and Yarun (blood wood) all around the big waterhole called Nyijil Nyijil, that way out in the desert; That’s my family country, my family comes from the desert”. The waterhole is from rainwater”

Turtujarti trees are valuable for their walnuts, which can be eaten when cooked, and also used for a black dye or paint.  Yarun wood is used for making coolamon, source of Bloodwood Apple, bush honey,The women get gum and seeds from the Bloodwood tree and put them on their heads as decoration.

Categories: Mangkaja Arts

Name: Penny K-Lyons (Nyangkarni)

Language: Walmajarri

Community: Mindi Rardi

Biography:

Yangkarni, one of the Walmajarri language group was born at Payinjarra under a tutujarti [desert walnut] tree. She grew up there with her family of one father, two mothers, one brother and two sisters. There is a rock hole with spring water at Wanywurtu where Yangkarni remembers going walkabout for goanna and pussycat [feral cat].

 Yangkarni’s family and other groups migrated north to the cattle station country surrounding the Fitzroy Valley. When they left the desert she was a girl in her early teens. During the journey she lost her mother’s sister, then her father and mother. Yangkarni became distressed about losing her parents and wanted to keep looking for them. Her brother kumanjayi [deceased] Pijaju(Peter Skipper) got angry with her and left Yangkarni and her little sister at a nearby Community called  Milidjidee and kept going.

 Yangkarni’s beautiful paintings show the traditional waterholes and hunting grounds of the Great Sandy Desert where she and her family lived up until the early 1950s

 

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© the artist / art centre