This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Umari, situated in a sandhill country east of Winparku (Mt. Webb) in Western Australia. The parallel lines in the painting...
This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Umari, situated in a sandhill country east of Winparku (Mt. Webb) in Western Australia. The parallel lines in the painting represent the rows of tali (sandhills) which surround Umari. A number of ancestral women, represented in the painting by the 'U' shapes, gathered at Umari to perform ceremonies associated with the site. The women, one of the Nangala kinship subsection and the others of the Napaltjarri kinship subsection, later travelled towards the east. At Umari they collected the small seeds known as wangunu or woollybutt from the perennial grass Eragrostis eriopoda, to grind into a paste to make damper. One of the stories associated with the area concerns a relationship between a man of the Tjakamarra kinship subsection and a woman of the Nangala kinship subsection. This is a mother-in-law relationship, which is forbidden in Aboriginal culture.