Lucky Morton Kngwarray

We were living bush at Ngkwarlananim. Everyone’s shifted away now. No one’s there at that camp. It’s finished. We were walking around. No car. Walking to Amaroo with swags. I was carrying the billy can when I was a young girl.

Women’s dreaming is to dig for tyape and yerrampe. We’ve dug them for a long time. Always. Daughters and granddaughters are hunting them too. They know. We can sing that kere. We know how to find them. Looking around for signs. Our old people taught us how to look properly and with open eyes.

Long time ago at 3 Bores we started the batik. Silk. Batik. I like it. Put them in the water. Put in yellow and another one, maybe green. Use wax. Use the chanting. Hard one. We had to wash them, boil them, put them in the bucket. Not easy. We been working hard for batik. We worked at Ngkwarlananim making them up there too. The first ones. All over there in our country. The whole lot of us together. We did batik with Lily, Janice, Katie my mother, and her mother too. They put them all in that paper. That book. My mother’s batik book.

When we finished with silk we started with canvas. All day canvas, canvas, canvas. Same story. Ilyarnayt all day. Big mob this growing in Ngkwarlananim. We’re still painting that story.