Kapaliku ngurra yirritinguru (Our Grandmother ancestors have been here forever) is a community-based arts project working with Aboriginal people in Kintore through workshops with Senior Women Elders and young women. The aim of the project is to support the transfer of Pintupi-Luritja culture and language to younger generations.
The project will include the making of a documentary film on the importance of Aboriginal culture and language in strengthening and sustaining the wellbeing, identity and pride of individuals, families and communities. The film will be screened in communities and distributed widely.
The Kintore culture camp took place from the 13th – 16th May with the actual camp conducted on Saturday and Sunday. The camp comprised of nine (9) Senior Women Elder and three (3) young women from Kintore. The importance of preserving and transferring the cultural knowledge, language, stories, art and dance was emphasized through out the culture camp for participants to embrace the opportunity to teach the younger generation. Participants were encouraged to see themselves as role models for other communities.
Day One of activities involved all participants sitting down together around a large canvas sharing stories of women dreaming and drawing/painting those stories down on the canvas. As they painted, they sang songs about goanna hunting and laughed about what life was like in the olden days. The day concluded with everyone cooking roo (marlu) tails for dinner.
After breakfast on Day 2 the women walked over to the rock-hole known as Nguju and shared their stories of cultural knowledge passed onto them from their grandmothers and mothers and of themselves passing the same knowledge down to their daughters. After filming the stories, the team packed up the camp and drove about 15kms south so the ladies could hunt for goannas and collect bush tucker and bush medicine.
Everyone said they had a great time and that it was very important to pass on knowledge and culture to the younger generations so they know their country and can survive off the land if they need to, “just like in the olden days before there was any shops.”