9 February 2018 / leggypeggy

Tracking the Seven Sisters

Aboriginal art, baskets, deserts, Dreamtime, National Museum of Australia, paintings, sculptures, Songlines, text, videos, weaving

1. Minyipuru (Seven Sisters) 2007

2. The Seven Sisters 2003–04 by Tjanpi Desert Weavers. Their pursuer is on the right

3. Seven Sisters Songline 1994 by Josephine Mick

Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters is one of the most remarkable and moving exhibitions ever shown at the National Museum of Australia.

As the exhibit says ‘At first glance, the Seven Sisters songline is the story of an ancestral shape-shifter and the women he pursues. It is also a tale of survival, resilience and endurance arising from the endless drama of flight and pursuit, and the ability of women to overcome the threats and dangers that face them.’

Clearly, the #MeToo phenomenon has been around for centuries, and the Seven Sisters were among the first ‘victims’.

Minyipuru Pangkalpa by Nancy Nyanjilpayi Chapman, 2015

4. Minyipuru Pangkalpa 2015 by Nancy Nyanjilpayi Chapman

Or were they? This exhibit makes the point that the sisters usually managed to stay one step ahead of their pursuer.

Now, first off, you need to know that much of Aboriginal history is based on Dreamtime stories that have been handed down through the centuries. The stories explain landmarks, water features, plants, the sky, people, personalities and so much more.

I can’t pretend to know much about any of this, so instead of trying to rewrite explanations about this exhibit, I will often use the words posted with the displays.

So here goes.

5. Yarrakalpa (Hunting Ground) 2013 by eight artists

A multimedia clip of the artists working on Yarrakalpa

A multimedia clip of the artists working on this piece, Yarrakalpa

A sketch explaining the various elements of Yarrakalpa

‘Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters is a journey along the Ancestral routes of the sisters as they flee across deserts, pursued relentlessly by a sorcerer. This is an epic tale of tragedy and comedy, obsession and trickery, obsession and loss, solidarity and sorrow—a universal drama played out in the night sky by Orion and the Pleiades, and a terrestrial creation story in which the land has a starring role.

‘The Seven Sisters story is a saga of mythological dimensions and meanings. It is of a kind with Greek legends of gods transforming themselves into swans and bulls and showers of gold in order to seduce the women they desire. But the Australian desert story has a more ribald, raunchy element.

‘In retelling the Seven Sisters story here, the museum becomes the three deserts of the Martu, the Ngaanyatjarra and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjnatjara peoples, the paintings become portals to place, and the films and audio pieces replicate the inma, or the song and dance that embody the story.

Baskets by Martumili artists Ngamaru Bidu, Kanu Nancy Taylor and Mantararr Rosie Williams, 2013

Piti (bowls) made by Margaret Dagg, Tospy Tjulyata and Nyurpaya Kaika Burton between 1997 and 2003

In 2017, Inawinytji Williamson wrote about the display and the Tjukurpa behind it. If you’re interested click through to more detail about what Tjukurpa means. Williamson said, ’The Seven Sisters Tjukurpa—our Dreaming creation law—is very important to us, we hold it strongly and teach it to the generations that come after us.

‘This Tjukurpa travels through many people’s country: the Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, Pithjantjatjara and Yankunytjnatjara lands. This really big Tjukurpa belongs to many people in the north, east, south, west and centre. Many people tell this story in different languages.

Wati Nyiru by Judy Trigger in 2013. Judy shows Wati Nyiru camouflaging himself as a tree (on the left) while he spies on the sisters.

‘We have brought the song, story and paintings full of Tjukurpa—the creation spirit of the Seven Sisters—to put in our Canberra exhibition. We want to show this major creation story here so many other people can look, learn and increase their understanding. And it’s for teaching all our children, our granddaughters and grandsons—to keep the culture strong. That is why we are making this exhibition so everyone can see and understand that our Tjukurpa law stands strong today.’

Today there are about 500 different Aboriginal peoples spread across Australia, each with their own language and territory and usually made up of a large number of separate clans.

The Seven Sisters cross virtually all these clans. In the west, the sisters are collectively called Minyipuru and their male pursuer is Yurla. As they travel eastward, the sisters are known as Kungkarrangkalpa (also Kungkarangkalpa), and the lovestruck man (sorcerer) is Wati Nyiru.

Video

Seven Sisters in flight

As the display explains ‘the sisters are not simply victims in their own story. At times flustered and flighty, they can be as tricky and clever as the sorcerer who transforms into multiple guises to trick the sisters he attempts to possess.

‘When the sorcerer’s lust overcomes his reason, and a part of him cuts loose in the form or kuniya the carpet snake, the sisters capture and wrestle it out of their country, flinging it away and watching it flicker and gleam with the colours of the rainbow, while the shape-shifter chases it over the western horizon.

Kungkarangkalpa Atila 2014 by Tjunkaya Tapaya, Ernabella Arts centre. The Songlines are in yellow

‘The Seven Sisters story is more than a moral narrative of actions and their consequences. It reflects a world in which necessity drives behaviour, power is negotiable and flexible, and resilience is the quality that ensures survival.’

The artworks accompanying Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters have been produced by artists from across Australia. Some pieces have been created by as many as eight artists working together.

The exhibition is loaded with special elements. Three items that helped to bring the artworks to life were an overhead video (visitors lie on beds to view), a collection of life-sized sisters hung from the ceiling and a re-creation of an Aboriginal art centre.

Aboriginal-owned art centres (this isn’t a real one) are dotted across the Central and Western deserts of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

Songlines were recognised as Indigenous law and given legal authority in the Australian Federal Court during the Ngaanyatjarra people’s successful claim, in 2005, to more than 180,000 square kilometres of land.

Below are captions for the photographs that are numbered. This blog theme plays havoc with long captions and I really wanted to include the artists’ names and other detail.

By the way, Songlines is on show until 25 February. There is a symposium about the exhibit on 23 February.

P.S. Do you have a favourite artwork? I have too many.

6. Kungkarangkalpa 2015 by five sisters, all from the Tjala Arts centre

Captions

1. Minyipuru is a collaborative work by three sisters—Muni Rita Simpson, Mantararr Rosie Williams and Jugarda Dulcie Gibbs. They show the seven sisters ‘following’ survival lines to travel across from waterhole to waterhole. Many of these waterholes are now wells on the Canning Stock Route, which is shown as the thick red line through the middle of the painting.

2. Six women weavers—Kanytjupayi Benson, Ivy Laidlaw Hopkins, Nalda Searles, Jean Inyalanka Burke, Thisbe Purich and Elaine Warnatjura Lane—worked on this life-sized version of The Seven Sisters. Their pursuer sits off to the right. This is the first artwork you see on entering the exhibition.

Kungkarrangkalpa 2014 by Angilyiya Tjapiti Mitchell. This shows the sisters at Minyma Ngampi. The blue circles are holes they dug and the carpet snake, kuniya, is in the middle.

3. In the Seven Sisters Songline, Josephine Mick shows the sisters paths of travel from the west near Roebourne to the east north of Sydney. The larger black circles represent major cities and the lands of the Kamilaroi and the Bundjalung peoples. The work is now incomplete because a separate piece, of Tasmania, went missing following an international exhibition.

4. In Minyipuru Pangkalpa, Nancy Nyanjilpayi Chapman shows the seven sisters teasing Yurla, their pursuer. The peach oval in the middle is the sisters camping. Other groups of seven shapes represent the sisters dancing, sleeping, sitting and painting themselves.

‘The Wobblies’ by residents from Wanarn Aged Care Facility. These works were produced when aged-care nurses gave residents paints and cardboard.

5. Yarrakalpa is encyclopaedic, containing a knowledge of plants and animals, of seasons and fire, of permanent and temporary water sources. It also describes the landscape. The Martumili artists are Kumpaya Girgirba, Yikartu Bumba, Kanu Nancy Taylor, Ngamaru Bidu, Yuwali Janice Nixon, Reena Rogers, Themla Judson and Ngalangka Nola Taylor.

6. Kungkarangkalpa was painted by artists from the Tjala Arts centre. Tjungkara Ken, the youngest of five sisters, dreamt they would paint on a round canvas. This is the result. The other sisters are Yaritji Young, Maringka Tunkin, Freda Brady and Sandra Ken. The painting tracks across 600 kilometres of the Northern Territory and South Australia, and conveys knowledge of bush medicines, bush food and water sources.

Yinunmara 1997 by Tjapartji Kanytjuri Bates. I have to finish off with this one. Based on the caption posted at the museum, Poor John noticed the painting was hung upside down. He reported it.