Katjarra Butler

Papuun - Katjarra

2023

CAT
23-479
Acrylic on canvas
91
121
91
cm
Dimensions variable

Framed

4790
Or
for set of
On hold
SOLD
Not for sale
Price on request

At Papuun there are four rockholes, one of which is very large, and so people used to swim there. Katjarra remembers swimming there during the hot times with her family.

The word Papuun means to ‘fan smoke with your hands.’ The Tjukurrpa for Papuun is about a woman called Kutungu who is described as a large senseless, middle-aged woman. Kutungu's kinship name comes under Nungala. She was travelling from the South-West, and through her travels she noticed some dog tracks and followed, with the intention of hunting them as she was hungry. She eventually tracks the dogs and can see they had been playing around at Papuun. Kutungu had watched the dogs as they went into a dried rockhole. Once they were all in the rockhole, she closed the entrance covering it with dirt and trapping them inside. She then gathered plants and grasses and lit a fire over the rockhole to smoke out the dogs. She fanned the smoke into the burrow with her hands. When they came out, they were dizzy and sick from the smoke. Kutungu then feasted, and once had her fill, eventually continued further to the West.

Courtesy of Tjarlirli Art