Design and Art Australia Online

Roma Nyutjangka Butler, an emerging artist belonging to the Pitjantjatjara language and cultural group, was born in 1959 at Wilu rockhole, and the kanyala (euro kangaroo) tjukurpa track. Roma spent her early years at Ernabella mission in South Australia and then travelled by camel to Warburton in West Australia, where she went to school and learnt to read and write. Irrunytju is her grandfather’s brother’s country. Roma works at Irrunytju Arts as an artist and with Ngaanyatjarra Media presenting a daily radio program of local music and news with her husband Simon Butler. She continues to practice traditional cultural activities including hunting and gathering bush foods, singing and dancing inma.
Roma has been encouraged to paint and been taught the many sub-plots and interconnected stories of the tjukurpa by the minyma pampa (old woman), especially Kuntjil Cooper . Roma is a powerful story-teller and her paintings focus on the drama, graphic and emotional intensity of incidents and relationships in tjukurpa narratives.
In one tjukurpa narrative from Roma’s country minyma tjalpu-tjalpu (black-faced wood swallow) and wati tjintir-tjintir (willy-wagtail man) were living together in a wiltja at Waltjitjata with their two tjitji (children). A big storm blew their wiltja down and the swallow was too heavily pregnant to build a new one. It kept raining so they decided to walk to Wanatjukutjuku. On the journey they saw a mamu (devil or monster) which came after the family and tried to catch them. The frightened minyma said “leave me alone I have little children”, but they had to run to escape. When they finally got to Wanatjukutjuku the wati said “you have to make that baby come out now, quickly, else I will have to cut your belly”. But she was too sick and tired so he cut her belly open and the baby flew out.
Roma frequently paints the Minyma Kutjara Tjukurpa (Two Sister Dreaming) which is very important for anangu at Irrunytju. While the representation of this tjukurpa often focuses on the grand journey, the locations of rockholes and significant sites, Roma explores incidents which refer to womens’ business, relationships and birth. Many aspects of the story are secret to mature older women only, alluded to or told only in whispers.
A long time ago the little sister was separated from her family by a big wind. She had been raised by other anangu and did not want to leave them. The big sister found her younger sister and was taking her home to be reunited with her family. As they travelled across the desert the big sister taught the little sister the tjukurpa, the ancestral tracks and where the rockholes were. In one aspect of the narrative painted by Roma, when the two sisters sat on hills near Irrunytju they were weaving string belts in preparation for women’s business. They were indiscreetly sitting with their legs open as they worked. A strange woman walked by and saw them and started to laugh, then all the women laughed together. The places where they sat marked the landscape, forming creeks and gullies. They picked up their wana and threw it creating the rockhole at Irrunytju called Wana Wani.
In another place, past Mitutu, the sisters saw a special boy lying on the ground. The special boy is one of the young men going through initiation and ceremony. His name was Piwi, and two minyma pampa (old women) were hitting him across the witapi (back). They were not supposed to hit him very hard, it was a ritual, but they got really angry and started hitting him really hard and would not stop. They broke his back. He died and is still at that place. The sisters walked on to a secret women’s cave and camped there.

Writers:

Knights, Mary

Date written:

2006

Last updated:

2011