Antoinette Napanangka Brown / Jinti-Parnta Dreaming (1A)

Artwork is accompanied by Warlukurlangu Artists (Yuendumu) Art Centre Certificate of Authenticity/Provenance

Antoinette Napanangka Brown was born in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She grew up in Yuendumu. She attended the local school in Yuendumu until 2003, when she got married. She has a boy and a girl born 2003 and 2004, respectively, which she spends most of her time looking after. While her grandmother, Wendy Nungarrayi Brown, was chairperson of the childcare centre, she would sometimes go there with her children and help out.

She has been painting since she was a young girl, painting small boards for Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association. Her great grandfather on her mother’s side is the well known artist Paddy Japaljarri Sims (dec), and it is from him that Antoinette has been handed down the stories of her ancestor’s country.

In this painting women of the Napanangka and Napangardi subsection are collecting ‘jinti-parnta’ (edible fungus far to the west of Yuendumu at Karnta Karlangu, near to another place called Mina Mina. ‘Jinti-parnta’ is also known as native truffle and appears in the sandhills after the winter rains. The growing fungus forces the earth above it to crack, exposing it. Then, women collect it, squeezing out the juicie before cooking. Jinti-parnta is prepared by cooking in hot ashes.

Ancestral women travelled north through Janyinki and other places, then to the east through to Alcoota country, while collecting ‘jinti-parnta’. They got to Mina Mina, which is a ceremonial place belonging to Japanangka/ Japangardi men and Napanangka/Napangardi women. Their associated land continues far to the west of Yuendumu into sand hill country. There are a number of ‘mulju’ (water soakages) and a large clay pan at Mina Mina and it is at these sites that the women danced and performed ceremonies. As a result ‘karlangu’ (digging sticks) rose up out of the ground, which the women carried with them on their long journey east. They danced and sang the whole way with no sleep. The women collected other types of bush tucker such as ‘yakajirri’ (bush sultana).

In the paintings of this Dreaming concentric circles are used to represent the jinti-parnta that the women have collected.