This painting depicts designs associated with the rock hole site of Mukula, east of Jupiter Well in Western Australia. During ancestral times a large group of women came from the west and stopped at this site to perform the ceremonies associated with the area. The women, represented in the painting by the 'U' shapes, later continued their travels towards the east, passing through Ngaminya, Kiwirrkura and Wirrulnga on their way to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). As the women travelled they gathered a variety of bush foods including kampurarrpa berries ( desert raisin) from the small shrub Solanum centrale, and pura (bush tomato) from the plant Solanum chippendalei. Kampurarrpa berries can be eaten directly from the plant but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked on the coals as a type of damper, while pura is roughly the size of an apricot, and after the seeds have been removed, can be stored for long periods by halving the fruit and skewering them onto a stick. The shapes in the painting represent the features of the country through which they travelled as well as the bush foods they gathered along the way.
© Papunya Tula Arts