Phyllis Napurrurla Williams / Water Dreaming – Pirlinyarnu (1A)

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

Phyllis Napurrurla Williams was born a long time ago at Mount Doreen Station, an extensive cattle breeding station, about 55km from Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. As a small child Phyllis went bush with her family learning all about her country. For a while she worked at Mount Doreen Station, then she moved to Yuendumu and now she lives in Nyirripi, once an outstation of Yuendumu but now a small remote Aboriginal community. She is a widow and has no children. Phyllis has been painting since 1988 with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation in Yuendumu, an Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs.

Phyllis particularly likes painting Janganpa Jukurrpa (Brush Tail Possum Dreaming) but also paints other stories, stories that have been passed down to her by her father and her mother and their parents before them for millennia. When she’s not painting she loves to go hunting with members of the community for bush tucker.

The site depicted in this painting is Pirlinyarnu (Mt. Farewell), about 165 km west of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. Two Jangala men, rainmakers, sang the rain, unleashing a giant storm that collided with another storm from Wapurtali. The two storms travelled across the country, from Karlipinpa near Kintore. A Kirrkarlanji (brown falcon [Falco berigora]) carried the storm further west until it dropped the storm at Pirlinyarnu, forming an enormous Maliri (lake). A “mulju” (soakage) exists in this place today. At Puyurru the bird dug up a ‘warnayarra’ (rainbow serpent). The serpent carried water with it to create another large lake. Whenever it rains today hundreds of ‘ngapangarlpa’ (bush ducks) still flock to Pirlinyarnu.

The ‘kirda’ (custodians) for this Jukurrpa are Jangala/Jampijinpa men and Nangala/ Nampijinpa women.