Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

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Untitled – Landscape Aerial

“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.

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Pulikati Hill

“This is our father’s ngurra (home Country, camp). We slept here in this area, near to Wartararra hill, but you can’t go through there. Lot of snake around there. This one Pulikati hill, we used to go through a gap here. There is a quicksand there, people don’t go there, not allowed. We used to sing out to the jila (snake) here for water, from this side. The old people used to sing out; “Come on send the water for me. This is good Country for hunting marlu (kangaroo) and for minyarra (bush onions) and other foods.

There is a woman from the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) that lives here in a cave around here. She is a good woman as long as you don’t take men with you. She looks after her ngurra properly. If the white people come around to mine him, she’ll kill him!” 

 – Sisters Wurta Amy French and Jatarr Lily Long

Pulikati is a hill and important cultural area located at the western end of Karlamilyi River (Rudall River), around the Wartararra (Watrara) tributary and adjacent to Wartararra Hill. Wurta and her family used to travel through this Country, passing through a gap in the hills (top centre) to their camp on the other side. 

As described here by Wurta and her sister Jatarr, the area around Pulikati is home to ancestral Jukurrpa beings; a fiercely protective woman who resides in a nearby cave, and a jila belonging to the adjacent yinta (permanent spring). The Western Desert term ‘jila’ is used interchangeably to describe springs considered to be ‘living’ waters and snakes, both of which play a central role in Martu culture and Jukurrpa.

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) period, knowledge of water sources was critical for survival, and today Martu Country is still defined in terms of the location of water sources. Of the many permanent springs in Martu Country, very few are ‘living waters’; waters inhabited by jila. Before they became snakes, these beings were men who made rain, formed the land and introduced cultural practices like ceremonies and ritual songs. Some of the men travelled the desert together, visiting one another, but they all ended their journeys at their chosen spring alone, transformed into a snake. These important springs are named after their jila inhabitant, guarding their waters.

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Kintyre

“We are Warnman ladies, painting Kintyre and Karlamilyi (Rudall River region). We can share this Country. [Kintyre] belongs to Pulikati [Hill], ngurra (home Country, camp) for my sister and all the Warnman families. My fathers and brothers and husbands, my sister they was there, 200 peoples was there [in the] bushman day! Everybody finished now (passed away), just me and my sister and Daniel, nyirti (youngest) one. 

[North west of Kintyre is] Yanytikuji, red hill over there. They working, doing the mining there now [at Yandicoogina Mine]. Next to Yanytikuji is a big claypan, Yalpalpa, main camp and a water. That’s a hunting place. Plenty of bush tucker round there; kanyjamarra (yam, bush carrot), like a carrot growing in the ground in the riverbed there. You pull it out, just like a carrot! Lunki (witchetty grub), and jatarrpa, that’s like a seed, you gotta clean him up and grind it to make a flour wheat, make a damper in the waru (fire). We gonna get that seed and show you fellas. Minyarra (bush onion) there, and ngaputa (sweet, patterned green melon), they all grow in the river banks.”

– Sisters Jatarr Lily Long and Wurta Amy French

Kintyre is a claypan located just north of the Karlamilyi region. Kintyre lies within sisters Wurta and Jatarr’s ngurra (home Country, camp), the area which they knew intimately and travelled extensively with their family in their youth. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era, the site was a popular camping ground in the wantajarra (wet season), when the claypan filled with kapi (water). Today Kintyre is best known for its substantial uranium deposits, and the area has been developed for mining. Protest from traditional land owners in combination with a declining uranium market have resulted in the project being put on hold for the time being.

The area around Kintyre was created during the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) by the Wati Kujarra (Two Goanna Men). The Wati Kujarra existed as half men, half goanna. They were responsible for the creation of many land features in Martu Country and beyond as they travelled, hunted and burned Country together. Wati Kujarra is a ngurlu (sacred, taboo) men’s story, and for this reason much of the content is only shared with initiated men. 

In their account, Wurta and Jatarr describe the collection of various types of bush tuckers in the region surrounding Kintyre. 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. Whilst desert life has moved away from mobile hunter-gatherer subsistence throughout the course of the twentieth century, bush tucker continues to be a significant component of the modern Martu diet. 

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Waterhole

“All the girls in Newman took me there to this place, my grandfathers country. There are four rock holes near the lake near Cotton Creek (Parnngurr) way.”

– Mary Rowlands

This work depicts a waterhole within the artists’ ngurra (home Country, camp), typically represented with circular forms. Waterholes are sites that require maintenance, including digging to increase flow, clearing out surrounding growth, and cleaning up after sullying by camels or cattle.

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) period, knowledge of water sources was critical for survival, and today Martu Country is still defined in terms of the location and type of water. Each of the hundreds of claypans, rockholes, waterholes, soaks and springs found in the Martu desert homelands is known through real life experience and the recounting of Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives by name, location, quality and seasonal availability. This encyclopedic knowledge extends even to the nature and movement of arterial waterways, and sustained Martu as they travelled across their Country, hunting and gathering, visiting family, and fulfilling ceremonial obligations. They would traverse very large distances annually, visiting specific areas in the dry and wet season depending on the availability of water and the corresponding cycles of plant and animal life on which hunting and gathering bush tucker was reliant.

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Kulyakartu

“My Country, Kulyakartu. I grew up there, from little boy to big boy grew up there.”

 – Muuki Taylor

This painting depicts Kulyakartu, Muuki’s ngurra (home Country, camp). Kulyakartu is located in the far north of the Martu homelands, near the Percival Lakes region of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. Muuki has extensive knowledge of the Country in this region, where he grew up living traditionally during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) days with his family. Kulyakartu is mostly grass Country where there is very good hunting. In particular parnajarrpa (goanna), wild cats, and lunki (witchetty grub) are found in abundance here. There is no permanent water source in Kulyakartu, so Muuki’s family would walk here annually following the wantajarra (wet season). During the yalijarra (hot, dry season) they would head south again to more permanent water.

Muuki paints Kulyakartu in all its different seasonal stages. Often visible in his work is the patchwork nature of regrowth subsequent to the practice of waru (fire) burning that assists with hunting, regenerates growth, and encourages greater diversity in plant and animal life. This mosaic patterning is aligned with the five distinct Martu cyclical phases of burning and regrowth. First is nyurnma (freshly burnt Country) when Muuki is “making waru”. Following nyurnma are the rains and subsequent waru-waru, when young, bright green plants start to grow. Nyukura occurs between one and three years after burning, when plants have matured and are fruiting and seeding. Manguu is “when him finished”, four to six years post burning, and when spinifex has matured to the point that it can be burned once again. Finally, kunarka signifies the time when spinifex and other plant species have become old growth, and pose a risk of destructive bushfires.

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Kulyakartu

“My Country, Kulyakartu. I grew up there, from little boy to big boy grew up there.”

 – Muuki Taylor

This painting depicts Kulyakartu, Muuki’s ngurra (home Country, camp). Kulyakartu is located in the far north of the Martu homelands, near the Percival Lakes region of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. Muuki has extensive knowledge of the Country in this region, where he grew up living traditionally during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) days with his family. Kulyakartu is mostly grass Country where there is very good hunting. In particular parnajarrpa (goanna), wild cats, and lunki (witchetty grub) are found in abundance here. There is no permanent water source in Kulyakartu, so Muuki’s family would walk here annually following the wantajarra (wet season). During the yalijarra (hot, dry season) they would head south again to more permanent water.

Muuki paints Kulyakartu in all its different seasonal stages. Often visible in his work is the patchwork nature of regrowth subsequent to the practice of waru (fire) burning that assists with hunting, regenerates growth, and encourages greater diversity in plant and animal life. This mosaic patterning is aligned with the five distinct Martu cyclical phases of burning and regrowth. First is nyurnma (freshly burnt Country) when Muuki is “making waru”. Following nyurnma are the rains and subsequent waru-waru, when young, bright green plants start to grow. Nyukura occurs between one and three years after burning, when plants have matured and are fruiting and seeding. Manguu is “when him finished”, four to six years post burning, and when spinifex has matured to the point that it can be burned once again. Finally, kunarka signifies the time when spinifex and other plant species have become old growth, and pose a risk of destructive bushfires.

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Untitled

“I paint these stories about gathering and hunting in saltwater Country; String rays, turtles, fish. Bidyadanga that’s my home, i feel free camping and going out bush, swimming, gathering oysters, mud-worms and hermit crabs.”

– Colleen Jadai

Coleen paints salt water cCuntry and dream time stories, all the stories that the old people taught her growing up in the Kimberley community of Bidyadanga.

 

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Parnpajinya

“We used to camp here before, in Parnpajinya. See these brown hills? This is where I been camping right there with no house, nothing. These two hills are Mount Whaleback. See the two orange ovals? That’s where the Dreamtime death adders used to sleep. There was a man snake and a woman snake. Where the man snake slept is now Boomerang Oval, and the woman’s side is now the hospital and the clinic. Yuwayi (yes).”

 – Mantyil May Brooks

Parnpajinya is a small Aboriginal community adjacent to the town of Newman. This site lies within May’s ngurra (home Country, camp), the area which she knew intimately and travelled extensively with her family in her youth. 

In her account of the area, May describes the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) snakes that lived in this area. The term Jukurrpa is often translated in English as the ‘Dreaming’, or ‘Dreamtime’. It refers generally to the period in which the world was created by ancestral beings, who assumed both human and nonhuman forms. These beings shaped what had been a formless landscape; creating waters, plants, animals, and people. At the same time they provided cultural protocols for the people they created, as well as rules for interacting with the natural environment. At their journey’s end, the ancestral beings transformed themselves into important waters, hills, rocks, and even constellations.

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Puntawarri

“All around is sandhills and lakes on every side. You can see the grass, but the lakes are all dry. In the middle is Puntawarri waterhole. That’s the jila (snake) place, two jila. They nyupa (spouses), they darlings, man and woman. They sleeping near to Puntawarri. It’s a hole in the ground- that jila will come out of the ground and all the dust will go everywhere. All the dust going everywhere, the dust that flies up when the jila flies up out of its hole. The jila isn’t in that place anymore. It’s gone now but that jila used to stop there.” 

 – Helen Dale Samson

Puntawarri is an important cultural area located on the middle stretches of the Canning Stock Route and east of the Jigalong Mission (now Jigalong Aboriginal community). It is also the site of an abandoned community, a waterhole, creek and lake. Puntawarri’s close proximity to Jigalong Mission made it a popular site for Martu to visit during the ‘mission days’. Dale was born at Jigalong Mission, and continues to live in the community now located there today. Though she grew up in the dormitory at Jigalong, she spent her weekends and holidays in the bush, camping at sites such as Puntawarri with her extended family. Once married, she lived around Puntawarri, walking and hunting in the surrounding Country.

For many Martu, like Dale’s family, Jigalong Mission was the site where their pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) lifestyle came to an end from the late 1940s as they transitioned to a life as stockmen and women working in cattle stations in the Pilbara region and beyond. In the wake of the extreme and prolonged drought of the 1960s, the last of the remaining pujimanpa (desert dwellers) were forced to move to missions like Jigalong, where a supply of food and water was assured. There, many Martu were reunited with family members that had already moved in from the desert.

The waterhole at Puntawarri is said to be populated by several kinds of ancestral jila, as referred to by Dale in her account. However the site is best known for its association with the Ngayurnangalku, fearsome ancestral cannibal beings. During the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) the Ngayurnangalku came together from all over the desert, first stopping near Puntawarri on their travels to Kumpupirntily (Kumpupintily, Lake Disappointment). At Kumpupirntily, they had a big meeting to debate whether or not they would continue to live as cannibals, and eventually came to the decision to stop eating people. That night, a female baby cannibal was born to the eastern Ngayurnangalku on the red sandhills at Puntawarri, where she continues to live today as the ‘big mummy’ Ngayurnangalku. Following protocol, the baby also had to be consulted by the group. She determined that the Ngayurnangalku should continue to eat people. Her decision divided the group, and from this point the group from the east continued to live as ‘bad’ cannibals at Kumpupirntily, while the group from the west became ‘good’, thereafter consuming only animals.

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Ngurra (home country, camp)

This work portrays an area known intimately to the artist, painted here in exquisite detail from memory. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era 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), and different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation) were carefully observed and remembered. Today, this relationship with Country remains equally strong, despite the movement of Martu out of the desert and into remote Aboriginal Communities, towns and cities.

Also visible may be traces of life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire). 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 visible 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.