Tiger Palpatja

TIGER PALPATJA

Born: c 1920 Amata

Language: Pitjantjatjara

Career Starts: 2004 at Minymaku Arts (now Tjala Arts)



Stories:

Wanampi (Water Snakes)

Mai Tjuta (Plenty Food)



Tiger Palpatja is a senior Pitjantjatjara law man, born around 1920 in South Australia. For many years he as lived near Amata , about 1,100 kilometres northwest of Adelaide and 150 kilometres south of Uluru. He received some schooling at Ernabella (Pukatja) when it was a mission. His early working life was spent on sheep stations where he distinguished himself as a top gun shearer, even going to Melbourne, probably in the 1960’s for the Royal Agricultural Show. Sometimes he worked as stockhand, sometimes as a fencer. As a young boy was identified as a ngangkari, a traditional healer, a role that is central to his tribal life. 



In 2004 he started painting for Minymaku Arts now Tjala Arts at Amata, working alongside artists such as Hector Burton, Paddy Kunmanara, Mick Wikilyiri , Barney Wangin and Ray Ken. The new art centre provided them with the opportunity to record on canvas, traditional Dreamings which were disappearing with the death of the old people of the region. Prior to painting he was known for his punu (carved wood objects) especially spears. The desire to record culture for posterity was important to artists like Palpatja. Many of these are based on his punu designs, repetitive curved arcs which were burnt onto his wood carvings. His work is distinguished by a vibrant colour palette and strikingly distinctive fields of colour.



Wanampi (Water Snakes)

Wanampi (water snakes) is a creation myth from the ancient Dreaming. It is about a mythical water snake that features prominently in Palpatja’s country around Amata. In the water snake story, two brothers trick their wives (two sisters) by turning into water snakes.



The story relates to the formation of the land, river courses and rock holes around Piltati where the two families lived, a place just west of Amata. Every day the women went out hunting and every evening they bought home kuka (meat for cooking- goanna or tinka) for their men who didn’t do anything but perform ceremonies. One day, annoyed at the men’s laziness, they ate all the food they caught and left the men to fend for themselves. To punish the women for their insubordination, the snake brothers decided to play a practical joke on them and make them work hard for a futile return. They turned themselves into Wanampi ( giant water snakes which also had the power to travel above and below the ground) and over many days lured them into burrows by showing just a small part of their tails. After digging for days and always just missing on pulling out the snake, the women created many trenches which have since become the watercourses of their local terrain. The story ends when the elder sister decides to dig a pit ahead of the entrance to the burrow (now the largest rockhole in Piltati) and uncovers the Wanampi and spears him in the side with her digging stick. He then kills and eats her at the mouth of the Piltati gorge and turns into a bloodwood tree with a dry limb sticking out at one side, and a trunk covered in lumps and excrescences. The dead limb is the digging stick with which the snake was speared, the lumps, the body of the woman still showing through the skin of the snake. The other water snake left the burrow and chased and swallowed the young woman. In Tigers depiction of this Dreaming he uses ‘u’ shapes to denote the sisters, a serpentine form for the snakes and circles and dots to denote ‘mai’ or food such as bush raisin, or to represent rockholes where the wanampi swims or holes that the women have dug.



In other versions of this story the men turn into water snakes, travel underground and trap the women by turning them into snakes so they can’t escape.



Mai Tjuta (Plenty Food)

This story conveys information about the favourite traditional food the Pitjantjatjara people hunt and cooked to eat. These include lizards which if dotted indicate Perentie or Monitor Lizard which is recognizable by its large spots on its back. The smaller lizards are the Tinka or Sand Goanna and Langka or Blue Tongue Lizards. Circles with dots represent kampurarpa or bush raisin.