Sunset at Town Beach
That’s a big fire east of Roebuck Bay to catch this moment of the red sky.
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Untitled
The traditional lands of the Martu people encompass the Great Sandy Desert and Rudall River regions of Western Australia, and include speakers of Manyjilyjarra, Warnman, Kartujarra, Putijarra and Martu Wangka languages. Martumili Artists work in the Newman based gallery and studio spaces, as well as within remote Aboriginal communities Punmu, Parnngurr, Kunawarritji, Jigalong, Irrungadji (Nullagine), and Warralong. Recognised for their diverse, energetic and unmediated painting styles, their works reflect the dramatic geography and scale of their homelands. The artists are predominantly painters, working in acrylics and oils, though many also weave baskets from gathered grasses and wool. Popular mediums among younger Martu artists include photography and animation. The group proudly maintain their creative practices whilst pursuing social and cultural obligations across the Martu homelands.
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My Country – Jukurr
This is Yikartu’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.
Yikartu’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. Yikartu was born at Lalyipuka. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily within Yulparija Country, north of Manyjilyjarra Country, and through to the Percival Lakes area, at the northern boundary of the Martu homelands. 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 Yikartu’s ngurra, such as the dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. These include Yulpu, Yimiri, Kupankurlu, Kurturrara, Wirnpa, Jurnpanja, Rulu-rulu, Taparl-taparl, Wirrkujapayi, Tayiku and Puntita. 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 Yikartu’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.
Yikartu’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. Yikartu was born at Lalyipuka. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily within Yulparija Country, north of Manyjilyjarra Country, and through to the Percival Lakes area, at the northern boundary of the Martu homelands. 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 Yikartu’s ngurra, such as the dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. These include Yulpu, Yimiri, Kupankurlu, Kurturrara, Wirnpa, Jurnpanja, Rulu-rulu, Taparl-taparl, Wirrkujapayi, Tayiku and Puntita. 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.
111582431888
Untitled
The traditional lands of the Martu people encompass the Great Sandy Desert and Rudall River regions of Western Australia, and include speakers of Manyjilyjarra, Warnman, Kartujarra, Putijarra and Martu Wangka languages. Martumili Artists work in the Newman based gallery and studio spaces, as well as within remote Aboriginal communities Punmu, Parnngurr, Kunawarritji, Jigalong, Irrungadji (Nullagine), and Warralong. Recognised for their diverse, energetic and unmediated painting styles, their works reflect the dramatic geography and scale of their homelands. The artists are predominantly painters, working in acrylics and oils, though many also weave baskets from gathered grasses and wool. Popular mediums among younger Martu artists include photography and animation. The group proudly maintain their creative practices whilst pursuing social and cultural obligations across the Martu homelands.
111582431887
Nebula Galaxy
This painting is about the Nebula Galaxy, their three planets, milky way cellular dust and its way behold our galaxy trillion km away. This painting is about the Nebula Galaxy, their three planets, milky way cellular dust and its way behold our galaxy trillion km away. This painting is about the Nebula Galaxy, their three planets, milky way cellular dust and its way behold our galaxy trillion km away.
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Untitled
Painting of the Nebula Galaxy way out million’s of km’s away, that we don’t see as nature displays way out, with planets stardust forming small planets.
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Minyipuru (Seven Sisters) Jukurrpa
“Minyipuru, Seven Sisters is a jukurrpa (dreaming) story. Pleides constellation, the stars. The big bright star is the old man, Yurla, chasing the kungka (girls).
They landed at [Canning Stock] Well number 2. They flew off from the side of [Menzies] Sandstone Road. It’s got seven little rockholes there, and Yurla is standing there and watching them as a rock.”
– Roxanne Anderson
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.
Minyipuru, or Jakulyukulyu (Seven Sisters) is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Relayed in song, dance, stories and paintings, Minyipuru serves as a creation narrative, a source of information relating to the physical properties of the land, and an embodiment of Aboriginal cultural laws. When Martumili Artists was established in 2005, this was the first Jukurrpa story the artists agreed to paint for a broader public.
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 travel the women camp, sing, wash, dance and gather food, leaving markers in the landscape and creating landforms that remain to this day, such as groupings of rocks and trees, grinding stones and seeds. 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.
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Punmu waterholes
“Punmu, I went there when I was a young girl, a teenager with my mother and father before my mother passed. Big mob of people was there. No building, just little cubby houses [bough shelters]. Long time I been there.
These here are the waterholes around Punmu; Rawa spring- Rawa means ‘long time’, Tuu-tuu, Jila-jila, Wirlarra and Yilyara. That is my ngurra (home Country, camp). We grew up in Punmu around all these water holes. I still live here with my grandkids, [we share the] same stories for all these places.”
– Marianne Burton
Punmu refers to a region and an Aboriginal community within its vicinity, located 670km North-East of Newman. Created during the return to Country movement of the 1980s, with the recognition of Martu land rights and native title, the community was named after a nearby Jukurrpa (Dreaming) story. As described by Marianne, Punmu is her ngurra; she grew up in this region with her parents.
Punmu community sits on the edge of a large salt lake known as Nyayartakujarra, or Lake Dora. The lake runs south into Karlamilyi River (Rudall River). Surrounding Punmu are numerous fresh water soaks and the red tali (sandhills) typical of the area. The most frequently visited yinta (permanent springs) around Punmu include Wirlarra, Rawa, Yilyara, Jila-jila and Tuu-tuu.
The Country around Punmu features in several Jukurrpa stories. Of particular importance is the story of the Jila Kujarra (Two Snakes), one of the key Jukurrpa narratives for the Martu. Though the story belongs to Warnman people, it is shared across the Western Desert with several other language groups. The narrative centres on the travels of two snakes as they are pursued by the Niminjarra, spiritual ancestors of the Warnman people.
Before transforming themselves into snakes, the Jila Kujarra were young brothers. As snakes, they began travelling home to their mother, but were intercepted by the Niminjarra, who tracked the Jila Kujarra to Paji, east of Nyayartakujarra (Lake Dora). Though the Jila Kujarra eluded their pursuers here by escaping under the lake at Paji, they were soon after speared and injured by two Pukurti (initiates with bundled hair) at Nyayartakujarra, who returned with the Niminjarra to cook the snakes at the site of Kumpupirntily (Kumpupintily, Lake Disappointment). As the Niminjarra cut down the length of the Jila Kujarra, the snake’s bladders were pierced, causing an explosion of scalding hot urine in which the Niminjarra all perished and became black rocks at the site. The spirits of the Jila Kujarra returned to their mother at Nyayartakujarra, where the mother and her sons entered the ground below Nyayartakujarra and remain to this day.
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Wantili (Warntili, Canning Stock Route Well 25)
“Wantili is my place, where I was born. It’s a place where everyone was living- it’s all of their ngurra (home Country, camp). It’s the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) of that place. All those claypans, a place where everyone comes together for ceremony and gatherings, all meeting with different families. I went there with my aunt [Jakayu Biljabu] and my sister [Kumpaya Girgirba]- they told me the story of where I was born, in pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) times. We walked all over the place. I was just a little one.”
– Kuru Glady Bidu
Wantili (Warntili, Canning Stock Route Well 25) is a large round jurnu (soak) and linyji (claypan) near Well 25 on the Canning Stock Route. This site is Kuru’s birthplace, and as such forms an integral part of her ngurra. The area is dominated by claypans surrounded by tuwa (sandhills), and Nyilangkurr, a prominent yapu (hill) is located on the edge of the claypan. Following rain the typically dry claypans are filled with water, with the overflow from nearby waterholes flowing to Wantili. At that time, Wantili becomes an important place for obtaining fresh water for drinking and bathing. Wantili is significant for the fact that at this site Kartujarra, Manyjilyjarra, Putijarra and Warnman people would all come together for ceremonies during the pujiman era. Many jiwa (stones used by women for grinding seeds) from these times can still be found there today.
Wantili is an incredibly important cultural site, ‘where the creation started.’ (Cyril Whyoulter). In this creation story, the world was initially dark, and people were like rocks, with no arms or legs. Following the sun’s first rising, life-forms become increasingly complex while particular features in the land were created. Beyond these details much of the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narrative relating to Wantili is ngurlu (sacred, taboo), and only for Martu, but the site is open, and anyone can go there.
Wantili is also one of the many sites featured in the epic Minyipuru (Jakulyukulyu, Seven Sisters) Jukurrpa story. Minyipuru is a central Jukurrpa narrative for Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people that is associated with the seasonal Pleiades star constellation. Relayed in song, dance, stories and paintings, Minyipuru serves as a creation narrative, a source of information relating to the physical properties of the land, and an embodiment of Aboriginal cultural laws. The story follows the movement of a group of women travelling all the way across the desert, beginning at Roebourne on the coast of Western Australia, as they are pursued by Yurla, a lustful old man. As the women travelled, they stopped to rest at many sites to eat, dance, rest and sing, on the way leaving behind an assortment of articles that became formations in the land, such as groupings of rocks and trees, grinding stones and seeds. The sisters rested at Wantili before throwing seeds, then continued their journey far to the east and beyond Martu Country, stopping at various sites through central and South Australia.
The intersection of the Canning Stock Route with Wantili 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.