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Kungkarangkalpa
Seven Sisters’ travels of Central Australia. Wati Nyiru is a lust-filled shape shifting man who seeks to seduce the Seven Sisters and take them as his wives. But he is an untrustworthy tricky man and all the sisters are deeply afraid of him. They travel across the country locked in a battle of wits. Wati Nyiru is smart, but so is the eldest Sister. They each have their stories, their songs, and their dances. Each knows how to read the country they move through, their bush tucker, their Law. The Sisters flee with Wati Nyiru in perpetual pursuit. Wati Nyiru is a master of disguise and uses magic to try to trick the sisters, transforming into highly valued food: the most tempting Bush tomatoes, and the most beautiful Ili (Wild Fig) tree and delicious Wayanu (Quandong tree). The sisters pluck the fruit, but when they taste it they realise that it Nyiru tricking them again. They forever travel through sand hill country hoping they have left him behind. However, Wati Nyiru uses his shape shifting so he is ahead of them, anticipating his next opportunity to seduce and steal one of the younger sisters away.
Eventually, so desperate to escape him, the Sisters transform into fire and flee into the Milky Way, where they are the Constellation Pleiades, now safely watching over all the women on earth. Wati-Nyiru follows them north, the lone star Orion, still pursuing, but unable to harm the Kungkarrakalpa. You will find them in the night sky, a small cluster of seven stars next to the Milky Way and Nyiru is the Morning Star that gets up early each morning to look for them. The Kungkarrakalpa Tjukurrpa creates links between all Australian women’s secret knowledge and Law about sacred places, knowledge about hunting and bush tucker species, and about creating and using various Punu [wooden artefacts]. The Minyma [mature women] often sing and dance the section of the Inma cycle specific to the Tjukurrpa of the place where they camp. When they meet other women at ceremony they paint ritualised patterns on their bodies with ochres and perform the epic Inma cycles [ceremonial song and dance] associated with these Tjukurrpa, each group holding a different section of the long and complex narrative.
