Travelling around getting bush tucker near my home. From when I was a tjitji (child) collecting mai (food). Travelling from home, not today but a long time ago. I would go with my family, friends, with tjitji tjuta (many children).
Michelle’s father’s country is tjala tjukurpa (honey ant dreaming). Michelle and her family still visit this country where she pays special attention to the natural elements on the land which are then represented in her paintings:
I am painting the landscape from above, as you might see it from an airplane or as a bird looking down. It is beautiful country both from on the ground and up above.
In Michelle’s work she creates how the tjala (honey ants) tunnel though the sandy soil. She also depicts the small groupings of intergenerational women and children sitting together and digging for the tjala. The earth is shown as soft because it’s been raining.
Tjala or honey ants live in nests about a metre underground beneath mulga trees, and they are a highly favoured food source. The tjala tunnels that lead down to the ants’ nests are called nyinantu, and the larvae are called ipilyka-ipilyka. After the rain when the ground is soft the women go digging for tjala by looking for the drill holes under the trees. They then use shovels and crowbars to dig down following the tunnels to find the tjala inside. Aṉangu suck the delicious rich honey-like liquid from the distended abdomen of the tjala. The story of the tjala is told across the Northern Territory into South Australia and is an important link between Aṉangu mythology and inter-dependence on the environment.
For the Pitjantjatjara people living in the desert, knowledge of their water sources was critical to their survival. This resulted in an intimate understanding of the landscape which continues today. Water is an essential element in the desert. These rock holes were particularly important during the dry season when most of the water holes and creeks dried up. Deep familiarity with the topography of their country and the way rain would interact with the land ensured constant sources of water could be found. Knowledge of rock hole sites is passed on from generation to generation and revered by all Anangu (people).
Tjukula means rock-holes, which are found with surprising frequency in the Musgrave Ranges and country around Ernabella. Between visits, Anangu would use a construction of rocks and spinifex to guard these important water sources from spoilage by feral and stock animals such as cattle, camels, horses and donkeys.
This Tjukurpa is from a place called Walytjata near Pipalyatjara. It’s a true story. You can see all the kids sitting there in the cave. The mother left and told the kids to stay there, but she never came back. It’s a sad story. The older brother, he was looking after everyone. He would go out hunting for malu (kangaroo), kalaya (emu) and bring back the kuka (meat) for all the kids.
This is a story of a woman named Maalila travelling south to west. She stopped near Kanpi area to look for a place to stay, her ngura (country). She was digging a hole to hide, she was scared of the wati (men). Maalila was with her daughter, they all lived in the underground cave hiding. They went out to gather bush food to take back to the cave. They dig for rabbits, kuka (meat) and they take kuka and mai (food) and they save for later in the cave. They have something to eat.
Story told by Teresa Baker
Miṉḏirr (dilly bags) are made from gunga (Pandanus spiralis), baḻgurr (kurrajong) and natural bush dyes. The body of the miṉḏirr is made from gunga, and the handles from baḻgurr. Once the gunga fronds and baḻgurr bark have been collected, they are stripped and prepared then boiled with the dyes.
Miṉḏirr were used traditionally for every day utilitarian purposes, particularly collecting bush foods such as bäḻtji (yam). Traditionally, the baḻgurr handles were worn across the forehead while the body of the miṉḏirr sat at the back, between the shoulder blades making it easily accessible when collecting ŋatha (food).
“When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see a colourful painting and wonder what it is, but that’s how Martu tell story long ago. It’s not just a lovely painting, it’s a story and a songline and a history and everything that goes with it.”
– Ngalangka Nola Taylor and Joshua Booth
This work portrays an area of Country that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the image may be read as an aerial representation of a particular location known to the artist- either land that they or their family travelled, from the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era to now. During the pujiman period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation), ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded with the use of a use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert.
An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire) are also often evident. A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is evident in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.
Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land. Very often, however, information relating to Jukurrpa is censored by omission, or alternatively painted over with dotted patterns.
In our country we have many hills of all different shapes and sizes. When driving through country at different times the colours change and some of the hills look like velvet in the evening and morning light.
