Doris Bush Nungarrayi Luritja, b. 1942
35 7/8 x 48 1/8 in
This work is about both a memory Doris has and a Tjukurrpa (dreaming) story, of a place called Nyunmanu. Doris lived here for many years. Her memory is of 'Anangu tjuta at Nyunmanu' - lots people living in a cave. Watis (men), kungkas (women) & pipirri (children). There is lots of minkulpa (bush tobacco) growing in this cave. Older kungkas are telling young kungkas to dance; Snakes and goannas were speared and eaten as a meal. Everyone is taking minkulpa and sleeping heavy. Another memory Doris has is that of she and her husband walking a very long way to this place. They were looking for water but could not find any and her husband got sick in this cave. They didn't have a fire, it was too dangerous. Doris says 'this place can make you go mad. Nyunmanu is a Dingo Tjukurrpa site just to the south east of the remote Aboriginal community of Kintore in the Northern Territory. Most of the dingoes and their pups from this place rose up into the sky and became stars. However, the ancestral mother Dingo and her pup had gone out hunting and were too tired to rise up, so they turned into a large rock that marks the place of this sacred Dreaming. It is said that if you sleep in this place you will dream of the ancestral dingo puppies. The story goes that if you remove one of the gleaming stones found at Nyunmanu, the puppies will haunt your dreams until you return it to the place where it belongs. The custodians of this Tjukurrpa are Nungarrayi, Tjungarrayi, Napaltjarri and Tjapaltjarri women and men. The circles in this story often represent important waterholes. The roundels extending from the circles are the designs the women paint on their breasts during ceremony.