Between the end of the 2016 Milpirri Festival and prior to leaving Lajamanu we visited Emu water hole just outside Lajamanu. The waterhole was full and it in a Tanami desert-scape of sparse vegetation ( spinifex, desert oaks, acacias and mulga trees), blue skies and strong sunlight. The history of the desert is one of a ice gre around 20,000 years ago, which retreated around 11,000 years ago and the rangelands emerged. That shift to an arid zone is a climate change event.
Desert in Australia traditionally means unsuitable for pastoral undue to the sandy soils that are deficient in nutrients and the spikesy spinifex grasses that are unpalatable to stock.

Kitty + Ursula, Emu Waterhole
The Warlpiri have extensive knowledge of water sources in the flat terrain in their dreaming stories, their vocabulary has names for different types of transient or permanent waterholes (e.g, rock holes, soakages) and they pass their knowledge about water holes and food tracks on through dance and paintings. I started to decode these paintings whilst at Lajamanu —I got as as far as circles for waterholes, lines for journeys, half-circles for people. Continue reading