Elsie Napanangka Granites Warlpiri , b. 1959
42 1/8 x 29 7/8 in
The women went east from Mina Mina, dancing, digging for bush tucker, and creating many places as they went. As they went east, they passed through Kimayi (a stand of ‘kurrkara’ (desert oak)). They passed through sandhill country where the ‘yarla’ (bush potato or ‘big yam’ [Ipomea costata]) ancestors from Yumurrpa and the ‘ngarlajiyi’ (pencil yam or ‘small yam’ [Vigna lanceolata]) ancestors from Yumurrpa were engaged in a huge battle over women. This battle is also a very important Warlpiri Jukurrpa narrative. The women went on to Janyinki and stopped at Wakakurrku (Mala Bore), where they stuck their digging sticks in the ground. These digging sticks turned into mulga trees, which still grow at Wakakurrku today. The women then went on to Lungkardajarra (Rich Bore), where they looked back towards their country in the west and started to feel homesick for what they’d left behind. The women split up at Lungkardajarra. Some of them travelled eastwards to Yarungkanyi (Mount Doreen), and kept going east. They passed through Coniston in Anmatyerre country, and then went on to Alcoota and Aileron and beyond. The other group of women travelled northwards from Lungkardajarra to Karntakurlangu. These women stopped at Karntakurlangu to dig for ‘wardapi’ (sand monitor/goanna [Varanus gouldii]) and ‘jintiparnta’ (desert truffle) before going further north. Both groups eventually got so homesick for their desert oak country in the west that they went all the way back to Mina Mina, where they stayed for good.
This Jukurrpa contains important information about the different roles that men and women play in Warlpiri culture, particularly in the context of ritual performance. It alludes to an earlier time in which their ritual and social roles were reversed, in which women controlled the sacred objects and weapons that are now exclusively “owned” by men.
In contemporary Warlpiri paintings, traditional iconography can be used to represent the Jukurrpa, particular sites, and other elements. In paintings of the Mina Mina Jukurrpa, sinuous lines are often used to represent ‘ngalyipi’
(snakevine). Circles and roundels can represent the ‘jintiparnta’ (desert truffle) that the women collected as they travelled, and straight lines are used to represent the ‘karlangu’ (digging sticks). ‘Majardi’ (hairstring skirts) are represented by wavy lines suspended from a single curved line.
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