Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

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Kupankurlu

“It’s a waterhole, yuwayi (yes), a soak. There’s plenty kalyu (water) there. It’s kayili (east) from here [Parnngurr]. Plenty tali (sandhills), plenty warta (trees, vegetation). It’s a camping area, my ngurra (home Country, camp). Sandhills, minyarra (bush onions), pretty flowers and green grass around the waterhole” 

 – Ngarga Thelma Judson 

Kupankurlu is a large soak and rockhole located in the Percival Lakes region of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. This site lies within Ngarga’s ngurra, the area which she travelled extensively with her family in her childhood. She recalls collecting minyarra here as a young girl. 

The Kupankurlu water sources are permanent, and as such this area was an important camp site during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era. At this time, 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 by name, location, quality and seasonal availability through real life experience and the recounting of Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. 

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Kupankurlu

“It’s a waterhole, yuwayi (yes), a soak. There’s plenty kalyu (water) there. It’s kayili (east) from here [Parnngurr]. Plenty tali (sandhills), plenty warta (trees, vegetation). It’s a camping area, my ngurra (home Country, camp). Sandhills, minyarra (bush onions), pretty flowers and green grass around the waterhole” 

 – Ngarga Thelma Judson 

Kupankurlu is a large soak and rockhole located in the Percival Lakes region of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. This site lies within Ngarga’s ngurra, the area which she travelled extensively with her family in her childhood. She recalls collecting minyarra here as a young girl. 

The Kupankurlu water sources are permanent, and as such this area was an important camp site during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era. At this time, 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 by name, location, quality and seasonal availability through real life experience and the recounting of Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. 

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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 system of symbols. 

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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Untitled

This painting is a collaborative work between Ivy Bidu and her partner Leon Cutter. They often collaborate on their paintings in the Newman Martumili studio. Ivy learnt painting from Ngamarru (Bidu) her older sister and aunty Jakayu (Biljabu) giving her some ideas of painting country. Leon learnt to paint in Wiluna by watching artists and family especially his older sister Gorgina Brown

Leon and Ivy often paint their Country East side of Lake Disappointment and North near Wantili and Parnngurr, Gorgina Bore and well 23. They often paint about bush tucker found in these areas like kirti-kirti (hill kangaroo), various species of goanna including parngarra, bush turkey (kipara) and wuukarta (honey ants). Fruits and vegetables also feature, they included jinjiwirrl (seed), quandong, warmula (bush tomato), kakula (bush cucumber) and minyarra (bush onions).

Their paintings represent the physical elements of Martu Country, with many important jukurrpa (dreamtime stories). Which Ivy and Leon learnt from family when they sit down around the waru (campfire).

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Untitled

This painting is a collaborative work between Ivy Bidu and her partner Leon Cutter. They often collaborate on their paintings in the Newman Martumili studio. Ivy learnt painting from Ngamarru (Bidu) her older sister and aunty Jakayu (Biljabu) giving her some ideas of painting country. Leon learnt to paint in Wiluna by watching artists and family especially his older sister Gorgina Brown

Leon and Ivy often paint their Country East side of Lake Disappointment and North near Wantili and Parnngurr, Gorgina Bore and well 23. They often paint about bush tucker found in these areas like kirti-kirti (hill kangaroo), various species of goanna including parngarra, bush turkey (kipara) and wuukarta (honey ants). Fruits and vegetables also feature, they included jinjiwirrl (seed), quandong, warmula (bush tomato), kakula (bush cucumber) and minyarra (bush onions).

Their paintings represent the physical elements of Martu Country, with many important jukurrpa (dreamtime stories). Which Ivy and Leon learnt from family when they sit down around the waru (campfire).

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Untitled

This painting represents the “Rock hole’ Jurnu, Yinta, everything!!”

When the artist was younger during the Pujiman (bush) days she walked around a very extensive area of the desert all around the Canning Stock Route area. They would walk from water source to water source; this is what she is illustrating through this painting. Represented are a lot of the different Jurnu (rock holes) and Yinta (spring) where she and her family would go.

Mili means belongs to everybody and Ngurra is home or country, all of the artists family walked here. She was here with all her Jurtu (sisters) Wungu, Yarpa, Nyikaya and Wunja walking around everywhere. She was also in this country with fellow artists Nora Wompi and Nora Nungabar as well as her mummy Yurnurr.

When the artist was a baby in the Pujiman time near Kilkil (well 36) on the Canning Stock Route there was no whitefellas. Then they saw the drovers with the bullocks and camels so they ran away a long way. She didn’t like them and she had no clothes on.

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Untitled

This is Kumpaya’s Country- her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. 

Kumpaya’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. At this time she travelled nomadically with her own and other family groups, traversing an enormous tract of land around the middle section of the Canning Stock Route, and between Punmu Aboriginal community and Kiwirrkura, more than 500 kilometres eastward. 

Kumpaya was born close to Kiwirrkurra, a rockhole located in the Gibson Desert and to the south west of Lake McKay. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around this area. As a young woman Kumpaya travelled westward, through to Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). She continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s. 

Portrayed in this work are features of Kumpaya’s ngurra, such as the striking salt lakes, dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. These include Luurnkurangu, Karingkarra , Katarta, Pinkari, Pintu-pintu, Yanjiwara, Kunalimpi, Juntu-juntu (Canning Stock Route Well 30), Warla-warla (Canning Stock Route Well 31), Kunawarritji, Kinyu (Canning Stock Route Well 35), Natawalu (Canning Stock Route Well 40), and Kupankurlu. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, and are generally depicted with circular forms. 

The encyclopaedic knowledge of the location, quality and seasonal availability of the hundreds of water bodies found in one’s Country 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. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of Country, generating a greater diversity of plant and animal life.

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Untitled

This is Kumpaya’s Country- her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. 

Kumpaya’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. At this time she travelled nomadically with her own and other family groups, traversing an enormous tract of land around the middle section of the Canning Stock Route, and between Punmu Aboriginal community and Kiwirrkura, more than 500 kilometres eastward. 

Kumpaya was born close to Kiwirrkurra, a rockhole located in the Gibson Desert and to the south west of Lake McKay. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around this area. As a young woman Kumpaya travelled westward, through to Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). She continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s. 

Portrayed in this work are features of Kumpaya’s ngurra, such as the striking salt lakes, dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. These include Luurnkurangu, Karingkarra , Katarta, Pinkari, Pintu-pintu, Yanjiwara, Kunalimpi, Juntu-juntu (Canning Stock Route Well 30), Warla-warla (Canning Stock Route Well 31), Kunawarritji, Kinyu (Canning Stock Route Well 35), Natawalu (Canning Stock Route Well 40), and Kupankurlu. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, and are generally depicted with circular forms. 

The encyclopaedic knowledge of the location, quality and seasonal availability of the hundreds of water bodies found in one’s Country 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. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of Country, generating a greater diversity of plant and animal life.

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Untitled

This is Kumpaya’s Country- her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. 

Kumpaya’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. At this time she travelled nomadically with her own and other family groups, traversing an enormous tract of land around the middle section of the Canning Stock Route, and between Punmu Aboriginal community and Kiwirrkura, more than 500 kilometres eastward. 

Kumpaya was born close to Kiwirrkurra, a rockhole located in the Gibson Desert and to the south west of Lake McKay. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around this area. As a young woman Kumpaya travelled westward, through to Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). She continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s. 

Portrayed in this work are features of Kumpaya’s ngurra, such as the striking salt lakes, dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. These include Luurnkurangu, Karingkarra , Katarta, Pinkari, Pintu-pintu, Yanjiwara, Kunalimpi, Juntu-juntu (Canning Stock Route Well 30), Warla-warla (Canning Stock Route Well 31), Kunawarritji, Kinyu (Canning Stock Route Well 35), Natawalu (Canning Stock Route Well 40), and Kupankurlu. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, and are generally depicted with circular forms. 

The encyclopaedic knowledge of the location, quality and seasonal availability of the hundreds of water bodies found in one’s Country 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. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of Country, generating a greater diversity of plant and animal life.

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Honey Arts Hunting

Wuukurta (honey ants) are found in a variety of arid or semiarid environments, with nests of up to two metres deep and more than two metres across. Wuukurta are a highly sought after bush tucker, known otherwise as ‘bush lollies’ due to their sweet, honey like taste. They are eaten whilst still alive by holding the head and legs between two fingers and biting off the thorax. Martu dig for wuukurta nests through the seasons, but they are known to be especially abundant following the rains.

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) 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. Hunting and gathering bush tucker remains equally valuable as an important cultural practice that is passed on intergenerationally. Though hunting and gathering implements have been modernised, methods of harvesting, tracking and the use of fire burning to drive animals from their retreats are still commonly practiced today.