Samantha Daniels Napaltjarri / Windmill at Mt Liebig (SD287)

Samantha was born in 1982 and lives at the Docker River Community. Her Language group is Luritja and she takes an active part as a social worker and office duties for her community as she has a University Degree. She is a granddaughter to the highly acclaimed artist Linda Syddick and often paints alongside Linda and her mother Ruby Nangala Daniels. Samantha has been painting since 2005 and is proud to promote her culture through her artwork.

She has had sell out exhibitions with Maruku Art Centre at Yulara at Ayers Rock, Northern Territory and has also successfully sold her artworks through many high end galleries within Australia. Her talent is obvious and she is destined to becoming a major artist whose artwork will be sought after by collectors worldwide.

Samantha has painted a story passed down to her from her famous grandmother, artist Linda Syddick.

Linda was born in the Gibson Desert at Lake MacKay, in 1937. At the age of eight, she walked out of the desert with her family. The party consisted of her step father, Shorty Lungkata Tjungarrayi, her mother Wanala Nangala and two siblings. They travelled from Lake Mackay in the Gibson Desert all the way to Haasts Bluff on foot.

Walking behind them was the ‘skinny old man’ the Walpiri witch doctor, who the family brought along as their medical advisor, because he knew everything about everything! They walked toward the East which meant walking up and down over the high sand hills, which ran north and south. When they got to Mount Liebig, they saw their first ‘white fella thing’. It was a windmill, built by Southern Cross Windmills in the early ninteeen forties. At first, the family was frightened but Shorty knew what it was because he had been working for the Army during the war. He explained to them that this whirling thing was harmless and was used for making water. So it became alright.

Later on the old witch doctor caught up with them but was so tired from walking that he fell down and went to sleep without seeing the windmill.

When he woke up, it was a different story. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and saw the noisy apparition standing before him. He began shouting ‘Mamu Mamu!!! this is a devil spirit, come to kill us!”. He started throwing his spears at it and but they bounced off with no effect. He then threw some magic stones at it, but nothing happened. The ‘thing’ kept whirling its arms around, making a terrible noise. The poor old man then fell sobbing to the ground still muttering Mamu Mamu!! Shorty came to his side and told him not to worry that this was a good thing, made by white fellas to get water out of the ground, for animals and people to drink. He showed him the pool of water at the base of the windmill. After a little more talking he got the old man to drink from the pool and finally the witch doctor understood that this was a good thing.