This country Booloowatu. My community grows bush onions. During the dry season jurnta goes black. This means they are ripe (cooked) and ready to dig up and cook on the coals. The left side shows jurnta green (raw). These ones will be ready for digging up next year.
Name: Amy Ngurnta Nuggett
Language: Walmajarri
Community: Bayulu
Biography:
I was born in Karnanganyjawutu then went to Japingka to live with my grandfather and grandmother until I was older. Then we left for Wili which is the country for Jukula mob. We picked up the rest of the mob and left to go to Puluwala, walking in the moonlight because it was so hot. After leaving Puluwala we walked to Purrpun and camped with my grandfather Walkarr and grandmother Jawili. then they sent Mawukura Jimmy Nerrimah to go ahead to Kurugnal. We followed later and made camp at Lumpu Lumpu whilst waiting for the rest of the people to arrive. The workers from Cherrabun Station saw a bush?re at Yapulu and thought there must be bushmen there. The police tracked them there to Yapulu, chained them up and took them into Cherrabun Station. They were frightened of the police.We camped one night at Cherrabun and then went into town to the police station. We went back to Cherrabun to work. My father passed away there and then my mother and I went on to Jubilee Station, across the Fitzroy River. From there I went to the Mission School in Fitzroy Crossing. I stayed there until one Christmas I didn’t want to go back. I went to Jubilee Station instead and learnt to work, cleaning the manager’s house. We had Saturdays and Sundays off. One Monday my promised husband came from GoGo Station to pick me up and we went to live at GoGo and then onto Bayulu Community.
PAINTING THEMES:
Karnanganyjawurtu jila [permanent waterhole]
Food and bush plants from the Great Sandy Desert
Fish from the river around Fitzroy Crossing
Pirtil Billabong
Puluwala jumu [soakwater]
Jurnta (Bush Onion) JURNTA that we digem up from the ground sometime we eat it raw or sometime we throw in the coals
Milyarn yirnta (permanent waterhole) “Milyarn waterhole got a big mob of trees all around, we call them parrkaparrka (Desert Oak), good for shade and honey this one” (edible nectar from flowers). “This one got Jilji Read more…
This is a big waterhole. Rain runs into the waterhole. This is good water. My people and my family lives in the desert for many years when rain season comes the waterholes use to be Read more…