Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

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Lalapakujarra

Lalapakujarra is a creek located along the Karlamilyi River (Rudall River). According to two of the central Martu Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives, the Karlamilyi River and its surrounds were created by the ancestral beings Jila Kujarra (Two Snakes) and the Wati Kujarra (Two Goanna Men) as they travelled across the lands.

Jila Kujarra is 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.

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Untitled

This work portrays an area known to the artist, painted here 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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Status: Stock

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sugar bowls – 3 designs

– Fine Porcelain Sugar Bowl with Bamboo Lid
– Includes White Porcelain Spoon.
– Dimensions: 8.5cm diameter. Height: 8cm (including lid).
– Box dimensions: 9.5cm x 9.5cm x 10.5cm
– Presented in a gift box featuring information about the artist and artwork.

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Status: Stock

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Cushion Cover – 3 designs

Cushion Cover brings beautiful art to life in the comfort of your own home. This Australian-made cushion cover is designed to provide a unique, vibrant touch to any space. Make your home the envy of others with this stunning piece!

Details:
– Dimensions (approx): 45cm x 45cm 
– Zip Closure.
– Print on both sides of the cushion.
– Please note that artwork/placement varies between cushions so each panel/cushion is a little bit different.
– Cushion insert not included. Insert recommended 51cm x 51cm.
– Information about artist and artwork included.

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Wangkakalu

Wangkakalu is a claypan and special meeting place to the southeast of Parnngurr Aboriginal Community, and within the Mckay Ranges. The landscape at Wangkakalu is characterised by especially large tuwa (sandhills). Large numbers of Martu people would gather regularly for ceremonies at this yinta (permanent spring). When the other claypans and yinta in the area overflow with water, the excess runoff collects here.

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. 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. 

Wangkakalu is home to an ancestral jila (snake). 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. 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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Family Groups

“The shapes represent the family groups from different regions.

It’s been really good, reconnecting with family and getting to know which family member is who. Getting to know my uncles, telling me about my mum that has passed away. Hearing about the stories and about my grandmother as well. Her stories, yeah, uncle Matthew tells us stories about my family. It’s nice to know where you come from, especially coming back home and connecting back to family.”

– Kerri- Anne Wilson

In the heart of central Western Australia, the Martu people are the traditional owners of a vast landscape stretching from the Great Sandy Desert in the north to Wiluna in the south. Across this Country, their lives are bound by a common ancestral heritage, law, and culture. To one another, they are walytja (family).

Walytja

The Martu term for family, walytja, encapsulates a broader idea of relatedness that permeates every aspect of life. The Martu four-section kinship system determines a person as belonging to either the Purungu, Milangka, Panaka or Karrimarra skin group, and was created by the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) ancestors.

This system not only defines relationships, it also establishes a framework for expectations and obligations, and extends the importance of family far beyond mere blood or marriage ties. Family is not limited to blood connections; it encompasses all relationships within the entire community, forming a network of relationships that was crucial to survival during the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era, and that remains fundamental to Martu life today. The kinship system allows everyone to know what expectations one person can have in relation to another, and means that familial terms and relationships are present between any two individuals, whether or not they are related by blood.

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Bidyada

Bidyadanga is a community located on the Kimberley coast in Western Australia, where the Great Sandy Desert meets the sea. The word Bidyadanga is derived from pijarta/ bidyada (emu watering hole).

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Bush food

Depicted in this work are traditional types of bush tucker, their habitats, and their related hunting and gathering methods. 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. Typically, animals hunted for their kuwiyi (meat) include kirti-kirti (euro kangaroo) and marlu (plains kangaroo), parnajarrpa (sand goanna), kipara (Australian bustard, bush turkey) and karlaya (emu). Lunki (witchetty grub) and wuukurta (honey ants) are dug from tree and bush trunks, or from underground nests. Popular mayi (plant food) includes minyarra (bush onion), collected from small, grass like plants; root vegetables dug from underground such as kulyu and mata (types of bush potato); and seeds such as kalaru (samphire, salt bush), yuwinyji, and marnkalpa (spinifex species). Jawirli (quondong), wamurla (bush tomatoes), jinyjiwirrily (wild gooseberry), ngaputa (melon), and karlkula (bush banana) are some of the most popular bush fruits. These are often collected in the wantajarra (cool season) and tuulpara (spring) months, along with juri (sweet) botanical gums and wama (nectar), obtained from various plant species. Traditional tools used for hunting and gathering bush tucker were carved from wanari (mulga), mulunturu (desert oak), yurungkura (river red gum) and mijarrpa (bloodwoods), and included kurlata (spears), jurna (hitting stick), karli (boomerangs), wana (digging-sticks), piti (timber bowls used for carrying food and water), and jiwa (grinding stones for grinding seeds into flour). While carved objects retain enormous social and ceremonial importance in Martu life, they are no longer used for hunting and gathering.

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Mungili Rock Holes

“Mungili rock hole. Big rock hole, big Country. I never see that place. My mother born [there], her and her grandmother walk through there, they tell me story [for that place]. Mother born there in the Country Mungili, walking through the bush. There is a camping spot, camping in bush – bush, bush, bush. [Points at painting] This is the lake Country and goes through there.”

– Matthew Mintern Smith

In this work Matthew depicts a claypan located in Mungili, the small outstation community situated just off the Eagle Highway in Western Australia. Mungili lies approximately 430 kilometres northeast of Wiluna and 250 kilometres north of Warburton. Mungili is ngurra (home (home Country, camp) for Matthew through his mother and grandmother. He typically depicts the site with a central large circular form that represents the main claypan, surrounded by smaller circular forms symbolising satellite water bodies.

The Western Desert term ‘ngurra’ is hugely versatile in application. Broadly denoting birthplace and belonging, ngurra can refer to a body of water, a camp site, a large area of Country, or even a modern house. 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. This knowledge is traditionally passed intergenerationally through family connections. Country for Martu is full of memory; not just the memory of their own movement through it, but also of their family. As summarised by Ngalangka Nola Taylor, “painting the ngurra, they do it to remember their connections.” 

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. Physical maintenance of one’s ngurra, like cultural maintenance, ensures a site’s wellbeing, and is a responsibility of the people belonging to that area.  

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Puntawarri – Helen Dale Samson

“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.