Blog

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Tjala / Honey Ants

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. Anangu 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 Anangu mythology and inter-dependence on the environment.

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Tjala / Honey Ants

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. Anangu 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 Anangu mythology and inter-dependence on the environment.

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Tjulpu Kulunypa – Baby Birds

This is an artwork about birds and their chicks. Carlene often paints birds, as tjulpu tjukurpa (bird dreaming) is related to her family’s country which is near Kanypi in the Western APY Lands. As a mother of several children, family themes are common in Carlene’s work. People call her Tjulpu Thompson, and she says ‘like I did with my children, I now raise chicks every day on canvas and in clay in my work’.

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Ngayuku Walka / My Design

Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.

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Ngayuku Walka / My Design

Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.

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Ngayuku Walka / My Design

Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.

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Ngayuku Walka / My Design

Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.

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Kampurarpa Tjukurpa – Elizabeth’s Story

Kampurarpa are bush tomatoes. Elizabeth’s work comments on the environmental change that has occurred on her country due to the introduction of non-native fauna such as cattle, and flora, notably weeds like buffel grass. Buffel grass is so widespread and destructive that it is commonly known in and around Pukatja as tjanpi mamu or devil grass.

From the very start of Elizabeth’s artistic practice she has drawn her kampurarpa tjukurpa (bush tomato story) in clay. In the old times kampurarpa were one of the main foods for Anangu.

I’ve seen the land change. We used to have a lot of flowers. We used to go out to the bush to collect bush tucker, like kampurarpa (bush tomatoes). And now there’s a lot of buffel grass everywhere. The land is changed by the buffel grass. Now there’s no more flowers – no purple flowers, yellow flowers, white or pink flowers. I’ve seen it. When all the cattle and the sheep and the goats came, the kangaroos left and went a long way away. They saw the strange animals and they left. That’s a true story.

Today, sometimes we still go out and collect kampurarpa but not like we did before. Our country has been changed by cattle and weeds like buffel grass, so we can’t find all the old foods like we once did. I’ll keep telling the kampurarpa story in my work, that keeps the stories, songs and dances about these important foods alive and strong.

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Strong Family Connection

This is a story of how life was before. It’s a beautiful landscape without problems like we have today. There were no problems then, people were happy. They were connected as families. It shows what life was like for our people in the past before we had houses. Everything was silent, and all the animals were close by to the people. Everyone looked after the animals and the environment. People don’t have that life anymore.