Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

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Urnapai

This painting depicts some large yinta (rockholes with permanent water) in the artist’s country, called Urnapai & Wirltun.

This work depicts a yinta (permanent spring) within the artists’ ngurra (home Country, camp), typically represented with circular forms. Yinta represent a reliable source of water and were traditionally used as camping sites throughout the year. 

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 (dreamtime) 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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Untitled

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. 

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Untitled

“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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Kartarru (Blue Hills Station, Canning Stock Route Well 24)

At Kartarru (Blue Hills Station, Canning Stock Route Well 24) located northeast of Kumpupirntily (Kumpupintily, Lake Disappointment), good drinking water is reliably available, and minyarra (bush onion) grows in seasonal abundance. For these reasons the site was a popular camping area during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era. This site lies within Miriam’s ngurra (home Country, camp), the area which she knew intimately and travelled extensively with her family in her youth. 

Kartarru features as a site in two important Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives, Wati Kujarra (Two Goanna Men) and Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, or Seven Sisters). During their epic journey across Australia the Minyipuru danced at Kartarru after stopping at Kaalpa (Kalypa, Canning Stock Route Well 23).

Kartarru is also the site of the old Blue Hills Station. Blue Hills, now abandoned, was a small Martu cattle outstation established in the post World War II years. The station was famously run by Miriam’s uncle and Putijarra Martu, Tommy Ingebong.

The intersection of the Canning Stock Route with Kartarru also made this a site of early contact with Europeans for many Martu then living a pujiman life in the desert. Following the route’s construction, Martu encountered Europeans and other Martu working as cattle drovers as they would travel up and down the Stock Route from water source to water source. Increasingly, pujimanpa (desert dwellers) followed the route to newly established ration depots, mission and pastoral stations. They were drawn to the route in search of food, by a sense of curiosity, or by loneliness. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, most of the desert family groups had left the desert. Eventually, these factors combined with an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s to prompt the few remaining pujimanpa to move in from the desert.

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Wurnanjarra

The artist has painted some of her grandother’s country, known as Wurnanjarra. Wurnanjarra is where Karlamilyi, or Rudall River, runs underground; this is depicted as the dark blue area. Large tuwa, or sand hills are found in this area also.

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Untitled

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. 

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Untitled

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. 

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Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33)

“I learnt how to paint in Kunawarritji; I’ve been painting here. I go to Punmu, Jigalong and Parnngurr, but I always go home to Kunawarritji. I learnt how to paint in Kunawarritji.

[When I was young] I was walking around Kunawarritji and Kun Kun, looking for meat with Jakayu and her family.”

 – Bugai Whyoulter

Kunawarritji is an important site in the Great Sandy Desert where multiple stories and histories intersect. Originally a spring water and major Martu pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) camping site, at the turn of the 20th century Kunawarritji was converted to a well along the Canning Stock Route. Each year throughout the 1930-50s, the well became a site of contact between the drovers, their cattle, and desert families such as Bugai’s. Bugai grew up, walked and hunted primarily around Punmu, Kunawarritji and Kun Kun (Kuny-Kuny), and as a young woman travelled up and down large tracts of the 1850km long Canning Stock Route, where she and her husband met and walked with cattle drovers. 

Long before colonial history entered this Country, however, other stories dominated this site. Primarily, Kunawarritji features in the Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) Jukurrpa (Dreaming). Minyipuru is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Beginning in Roebourne on the west coast of Western Australia, the story morphs in its movement eastward across the land, following a group of women as they walk, dance, and even fly from waterhole to waterhole. As they travelled the women left markers in the landscape and create landforms that remain to this day. During the entirety of their journey the women are pursued by a lustful old man, Yurla, although interactions with other animals, groups of men, and spirit beings are also chronicled in the narrative.

The Minyipuru travelled to Kunawarritji from Nyipily (Nyipil, Nibil, Canning Stock Route Well 34), and transformed themselves into a distinctive group of trees that remain in the area between these two sites. From Kunawarritji Yurla followed the sisters to Pangkapirni, where he finally caught one of the women. 

Today, Kunawarritji is a site of return, a place where people came back to continue their life in the desert with the formation of Kunawarritji Aboriginal community in the early 1980s. The community’s cultural significance endures, with the population swelling up to 1000 during cultural business.

 Kunawarritji is Bugai’s home today, and the place where she first began painting her Country. As is clearly expressed in her account, for Bugai Kunawarritji is her ngurra (home Country, camp).

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Wurnpurl tali

This painting depicts tali (sandhills) in the artist’s country. Tali are a dominant feature in the western desert landscape, where Martu people live.

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Pulykarti

Pulykarti is in Karlamilyi (also known as Rudall River National Park) in Warnman country, the artist is a Warnman lady. This is good country for hunting marlu (kangaroo) and for gathering minyarra (bush onions) and other foods.