AD= Alessandro Duranti
FM= Fred Myers
AD What are you looking for.
FM It's in here. Maybe we should skip it.
AD It's okay.
FM (?)
AD I'm recording by the way.
FM You are?
AD Uh huh
FM Okay
((FM begins taking artwork out of the closet))
FM Good...Oh God it's all this stuff I forget I even...here...
AD Great
FM (?)Okay
((FM Walks down hall with painting. and places painting on table.))
FM Yeah...This way...This one [Kungka Kutjarra] was painted by my...
closest... friend. All right.
AD So do you want to start with that or uh
FM Let's start with this one ["Kirpinnga"] because this
one is more like the ones that people um paint.
AD Yeah they're more....Mhmm
FM All right
AD Okay um
((FM stands and points to a painting on wall))
FM This is the painting that's on the cover of the book [Pintupi
Country, Pintupi Self (1986)]
AD Oh yeah
FM of the first, of the non-paperback issue of the book being painted
and it was painted by Freddy West
AD Uh huh
FM "Kirpinnga". And it was painted in 19... either late
74, 75. And it was painted at a time when they did all their paintings...They
were always painting on acrylics from the time I got there.
AD Mhmm
FM But the...on the canvas board its 24x36 inches. And they rarely
paint on this, on canvas board anymore accept for very "tourist
art"
AD Mhmm
FM type stuff,
AD Uh huh
FM to use that category, 'cause now... the art market demands higher
quality uh materials to sell them and this stuff they were always
worried about whether, because its cardboard backing
AD Uh huh.
FM and very thin canvas. Anyway, so this one is a painting of some
of the main sites in Freddy West's country which is out in Gibson
Desert near an area that they always talked about as Jupiter Well,
which was a well that was sunk um on an old native soak
AD Uh huh
FM um when the Gun Barrel Highway was put in in the late 50s. And
he left the bush in the early 60s. And he...there's a big picture
of him in a book called The Lizard Eaters1 ((laughs)). And so anyway,
this is the painting and the, the uh...there are three connected
Dreamings in this story. And this...the...the first one, the one
at the top is...um...the um...the...these are two snake Dreamings
and the one at the top is ...let me just see I'm trying to remember
the name, the Kuniya is the bush [rock] python
AD Uh huh
FM um traveling from one uh place to another and going around past
this one.
AD Mhmm
FM And this um...the bush python is associated with fresh water
usually
AD Uh huh
FM in a lot... generally in Aboriginal myth...it is. Circles always
represent something similar or imagined to be similar in shape,
class. But these uh
AD So they don't have to be places necessarily
FM They don't have to be places. They could be water holes. They
can be water. They could, in theory, represent breasts.
AD Uh huh
FM But usually they represent a geographical place. Could be a tree
seen from above.
AD Uh huh
FM And I don't remember (I mean) I have it in my notebooks obviously...I
don't remember anymore exactly what the names of these places were
but these are three water holes
AD Mhmm
FM and a hill...it's two...there's probably a water hole here too...along
a track that was the mythological path of that uh those ancestors
and there are two of them.
AD Mhmm
FM Then the one in the middle is um a poisonous a...let's see what
was this one called...it's a...um....it's a poisonous snake Dreaming
that travels from the salt lake uh um um, which is actually near
um Lake Mackay, which is a huge dry salt lake... occasionally....
Sometimes it has water in it. And this track goes all the from there
uh...they both go west
AD Mhmm
FM towards...uh...you know...um...from around ...this is...around
Lake Mackay going west.
AD Is that something you would know from looking at the painting?
FM Nobody...
AD (?)
FM No, you wouldn't know...any...an aboriginal viewer from a Pintupi
community would suspect that these were snakes
AD I see. Yeah
FM because they're meandering lines
AD Right
FM which is the kind of mark that a snake leaves in the ground.
AD I see. So even that is actually the mark on the ground, it's
not the actual snake.
FM Yes. It's not the actual snake but the mark stands for the snake.
AD Right. Okay.
FM And they represent...they really represent the places left behind.
AD Right
FM and the connections of the ancestral beings. Now these [meandering
lines] are probably not embodied in specific marks on the ground
AD Mhmm
FM ...the snakes tracks. But there are all these places...marks
of what the snakes have done. So this one...if this is what I think
it is...I have a photographs um of a place that I went to visit much
later [1988, with Freddy West] where there's a rock formation that
looks like a coiled snake [Karilywarranya] that has um that has um..similar...not...not
quite like these, but circles with dots in them
AD Mhmm
FM that are painted on the rock that are said to be the bodies designs
of the ancestral figures. These are...this is uh...these are transformations.
I mean what's on...what's on the board here...these kinds of circles
are the kinds of things men put on their bodies for certain kinds
of...of um....um ritual reenactments.
AD Mhmm
FM And these...um...and this one is one that is not absolutely forbidden
for women to see. They wouldn't be at the ceremony but they could
see these kinds of designs up to a point.
AD So all the paintings are like that or they have made paintings
of things that should not have seen.
FM They used to make paintings of things that they didn't think
should be seen. But they didn't really underst...they didn't really
think too much about audience.
AD (You mean)
FM They thought that these were going out...in the early 70s these
were going out to whites. It had nothing to with their...you know
AD I see....They would not come back
FM ( ? ). They didn't expect they would come back or that members
of their own society might go out and see them.
AD Right.
FM And they got...I wrote...I must have written about this. But anyway,
they...they... um...there was a...they got into a lot of trouble
when some...they and some other painters...uh when uh....An exhibition
was held in Perth [1974].
AD Mhmm
FM And uh some Western Desert Aboriginal men from another community
saw them and they insisted that 40 or 42 paintings be turned to
face the wall because they contained material that they thought
should not be generally available.
AD Mhmm
FM And then they had...they were involved in making compensation.
As a result the paintings became...well I'll finish this one...but
the paintings became...they a...they shifted from a....this doesn't
represent a more...uh definitive...uh or representative style...but
they shifted to those which were more ambiguous about the information
AD (I see)
FM that they presented.
AD Right. Right
FM So in any case...so this...so these snakes went here but they
um uh and I can't remember you know, Nyiinkuwakalynga [sic - should
be Nyinminya], I think is one of the names of places. But in the
center here
AD Mhmm
FM is a place that is um...um...uh uh... uh probably a cave
AD Mhmm
FM a hill from which flying ants emerged.
AD Uh huh
FM And the song...when Freddy West sang me the songs that are involved
with the rituals of the places in here....The stories is that these
ancestral beings looked down and they could see the um the wartunuma...the...
is the name...that what he would call this painting, Wartunumanya,
AD Mhmm
FM named after this central place here where the the flying ants
flew up
AD Uh huh
FM and they could... these ancestral beings could see each other.
AD I see.
FM And they could see the ants...so in the songs of these places
they looking down and they say, "Wartunuma, wartunuma...," you
know and they're seeing them in the distance....So there's...there...these
stories are connected in their own telling which is partially embedded
in the songs that people sing
AD Mhmm...mhmm
FM of how all of these places are connected and the one at the bottom...is
a cave...uh and this was..this is a story that probably uh would
be more restricted of access.
AD I see.
FM I mean (I can only)....So this represents another cave and this
is um...um...uh sacred objects that have turned to stone
AD Uh huh
FM and they actually..it has...uh in this sense this is a very coded
form of the sacred object...that he's represented but it's a formation...and
probably paintings and designs and so on inside a cave
AD Mhmm
FM that uh only initiates would be allowed
AD Mhmm
FM to see....And (then) young men are taken there as part of their
uh ritual instruction and their long term initiation
AD Mhmm
FM into uh ritual life...and told these stories and the songs of
the places
AD Right
FM and uh and they become custodians through that kind of involvement
in them.
AD How did they learn to...how did they learn to paint?
FM They would um...(what started) the painting....They always painted
.They used to paint on the body
AD Mhmm
FM and they used to use little twigs
AD Right
FM and their fingers to make these circles and twigs...you know dots
like these would be made with a twig dipped in
AD But I mean
((Faye Ginsburg brings another painting into view))
FM Oh that's a good one.
AD As an individual?
FM As individuals they uh...I mean...traditionally?
AD Yeah.
FM Traditionally they weren't...to paint...um...as uh...well women
and men separately but in their kind of...they would...um...they
as younger...um...there's a sort of pre-instruction and then people
do...um...tell...um... stories and accompany them with graphic signs
in the sand.
AD Uh huh
FM So part of that is uh in the acquisition of some of the graphic
stuff comes from that.
AD But originally...so originally it was on this
FM But they learn in ritual...they...they...they
AD I see.
FM put these designs on people and young men have it done to them
and they gradually are allowed to participate in it and usually
they watch other people
AD Right
FM (?)
AD Would you say that they almost.. I mean, anybody
FM But they're not instruct...usually
AD Yeah
FM nobody's standing over them
AD Right
FM and saying do it this way. So they watch and then they say and
now you do it
AD They watch for a long time?
FM Yeah, they would... you have to be much older.... I mean novices
don't do, they watch, and they have it done to them.
AD So at... at what age would somebody start painting?
FM They would... Well...this would have been seen... it's hard to
say.... They start painting people up fairly early for lesser important
ceremonies...you know that they're involved in. It depends how many
others are around. Young men probably in their early 20s.
AD (?)
FM They start putting some designs on themselves.
AD on them....Right.. on themselves
FM And also on other people and other young men
AD Right
FM and so on..and they gradually...they....No individual painted
alone.
AD Okay, (that's)
FM So that they would be there with lots of other people
AD Right, so they do part of it
FM They do part of it and they'd say, "You put one here," and...
AD That's great...so
FM So
AD (?)
FM It's about who's... the real issue is not who executes it, but
who's responsible for the production of the design,
AD I see.
FM which could be some old guy who's
AD who's
FM (not) over doing
AD over viewing....Yeah.
FM Yeah
AD So he can say...if they...if they (get)...do they correct them,
like (?) say, no don't do it like that, do..
FM Right, yeah.
AD Yeah
FM um...so and then...and so this (?) he refers to this painting
as Wartunuma but it's made.. that's the name of this particular site
AD Uh huh
FM Um...but it could be named for any one of these.
AD Uh huh
FM He's brought three stories together on one
AD I see.... Well,
would people know that? Other... other people... other Pintupi?
FM No, they might suspect it because they know.. they know the places
for which he's a..uh custodian.. for which he has the rights
AD I see.
FM Because he has the rights to paint this story through...
AD Right...right.
FM complicated (?)
AD So the meaning of the painting..um is related..to the..the kind..the
person who painted it and the access that he has to
FM Yeah
AD certain myths.
FM Right. And they didn't paint things like this traditionally...that
is ...the problem of decoding the meaning of this was not an indigenous
problem.
AD Uh huh
FM Because these designs are deployed usually in a context in which
they're celebrations of a place and people know what the story is
that's being represented.
AD So you don't need to tell the story.
FM Right. But they do...I mean they would...um
AD But they would sing the songs.
FM They sing the songs...you know then they talk about...and they
say, "This is what happened here
AD Right
FM and it belonged here,"you know. "Grandfather
AD Right..right..right
FM and so and so was sitting there." There's a lot of narratization
AD Right
FM that takes place..not all at once....They don't usually sit down
and say, "It went from here to here to here."
AD Right
FM They hear bits and pieces of it
AD bits and pieces
FM over the years and they put it together.
AD Mhmm
FM And uh....You want to do...see another one?
AD Sure.
((FM walks toward another painting))
FM Well, here's one that's actually more representational. I haven't....Can
you shoot in this direction?
AD Um...yeah it's a little dark because of the light
FM light....You want me to move it over there in front of the (?).
I can hold it up there.
AD Yeah. (Why don't we do that). Yeah
((FM carries painting across the room))
FM Okay, this is painted by Wuta Wuta Tjangala who became a very
famous painter.
AD Uh huh
FM This is one of the ones..first..early ones that was painted on
canvas.
AD (Shift) it a little bit towards the light.
FM How's that?
AD That's good.
FM Okay.
AD Yeah, perfect.
FM And this is uh...god I'm having so much trouble remembering,
Yunarlanya, uh Yunarlanya means a place in the Pollock Hills.
AD Uh huh
FM And this is a creek.
AD Uh huh
FM You can see this meandering line and that's what creeks look
like in relatively ...you know un...(it is) a hill.... Yumarlanya.
Yunarlanya is a soakage
AD Uh huh
FM or actually a kind of water pan
AD Uh huh
FM at the bottom of this creek.
AD Uh huh
FM And um...each of these...circles represents a different named
place on the creek. Yunarlanya is the one probably at the bottom
AD Uh huh
FM where actually I camped. But this is a story um...of um....And
semi circle represent people sitting
AD Uh huh
FM usually.
AD Right
FM And so this is the soakage at the top. And there was uh an argument
and um... um...one of these ancestral figures chases the other one
down the creek and it's their movements that create the creek. And
he has power related to control over rain and so on. And he's using
hail...he's throwing at him...hail stones are being sent...and that's
what these are.
AD Mhmm
FM And they go to these different places along the creek and this
is another....These are all soakages where people would have camped
AD Uh huh
FM or...or gotten water if they needed it. And they sit...sitting
down at these places. They moved to the bottom here.
AD So in that sense the...the...there's not really an issue of proportions
in a sense that uh
FM No.
AD a person's
FM Not usually. The...
AD Yeah
FM They're very comfortable with...and since uh...with uh...simply....It's
more like iconography in the Medieval sense of
AD Yeah
FM representing the components of a story than they are with the
naturalistic relationship
AD right
FM between the two places....They can draw them....I mean a few
people do (land) maps.
AD Yeah
FM They're absolutely
AD Right
FM you know uh done it that way. But this is to conform to the space
AD Mhmm
FM that's here. Although this is uh...you know...this is regarded
as a linear.
AD What about this thing in uh..in uh
FM Well now of course the story is...this...the actions of these
ancestral beings who created this creek and then the soakage is there
AD Mhmm
FM (wherein) people stuck things into the ground and so on,
AD Did they always have this idea....I mean the the canvas or the...the
(?)
FM The dots?
AD No, this idea of uh...you know that basically covers the whole
surface?
FM ((long exhale))
AD I mean did they
FM Well...
AD When they did it on the sand did they have
FM Well when they did them on the sand...you see the Pintupi didn't
do that much sand
AD Uh huh
FM painting. But they would uh
AD You mean mostly they would do it on their bodies?
FM They did more bodies
AD Yeah
FM and cave surfaces but they did some sand paintings. Well they...what
they...you know the thing about the...the sand is that they wet it
down to make a surface.
AD Mhmm
FM And then (they're) actually more likely to...to um... stick...uh
not to paint it so much as to stick...um...you know uh down and stuff
on it
AD Uh huh
FM and so on....Uh but this wouldn't have been done like that I
mean using these dots is a convention that emerged...as background...uh
AD Right
FM Uh..using uh...dots were used in traditional body paintings and
so on but not as entire background
AD Uh huh
FM like that.
AD So you might have had dots like around one of those...uh
FM Yeah, they would be
AD body or wells or something
FM like these kind of dots or in
AD Yeah...right.
FM in in here.
AD Mhmm
FM Like this actually
AD Mhmm
FM is more like what you might see.
AD Mhmm
FM And here...
AD Great.
FM And he's still using these kind of funny colors. They began to
not use so many oranges and so on...partly from the art advisor who's
um helping
AD Which year is this?
FM This was 1975.
AD Mhmm
FM This is the first painting I ever bought is the one.. Here, I'll
show you. [Shorty Lungkarta's wooden dish painting]
AD Okay.
((FM puts painting down and walks toward another painting))
FM And they moved in a direction...let me...if you turn around behind
you. This one here...the one on...on this wall [Freddy West's painting, "Kirpinnga"]
AD Yeah, right.
FM and the ones behind you represent work from the early...this
is the early eighties and that one you're looking at now is uh
AD Mhmm
FM uh is 1981.
AD Mhmm
FM Painted by Freddy West.
AD Uh huh
FM And this one over here was painted in 198..8
AD Is that also Freddy West?
FM No. That was painted by a man named Yanyatjarri Tjampitjinpa
AD It looks very different.
FM Yeah...it's uh...actually it's a place where they were living
called Kiwirrkura. He's using a rectilinear system which is actually
a design....I'm not sure why...((laughingly)) he did this.
AD Mhmm
FM These are sands hills. And these represent these uh um desert
oaks.
AD Mhmm
FM Some kind of plain country with sand hills and these deserts
oaks...with this rectilinear style...and this is a water course.
AD Mhmm
FM But this rectilinear style is that which was used um when men
uh did designs on spear throwers [such as Tim Payungku did for me]
and on their shields and so on
AD Mhmm
FM and also on some sacred objects. So there's uh.. a non-circle
system....Nobody's written much about how these rectilinear ones...you
know how they work as signs. And I'm not sure that uh...I understand
them. They're not really used the way Nancy Munn describes the circle
AD Uh huh
FM line thing.
AD Uh huh
FM Um...and this guy [Yanyatjarri Tjampitjinpa] wasn't very...uh....
He's not a very good informant for explaining things
AD Mhmm
FM at that level but it's a very.... He was a person who didn't
paint much in the orig...early period but he's turned out to a person
of incredible artistic uh ability and imagination.
AD Mhmm
FM I think he had a broken arm from a fight when (?).
AD Mhmm
FM And this one was painted in 1981 by a younger man [Kanya Tjapangarti]
...a man who was like much earlier on in his uh.... He was probably
in his late 20s (then) mid to late 20s
AD Mhmm
FM who I had known when he was...just soon after he was initiated.
But you can come and look at this (one)....This is more like what
the design....This one painted by Yala Yala Gibbs who is now an old
man
AD Mhmm
FM uh is more like what you see in caves
AD Uh huh
FM Um which would not...which women wouldn't be allowed to see and
they are regarded as having been left by the Dreamings themselves.
Men would go back and retouch them
AD I see.
FM you know to do them again. But this kind of...you can see it
doesn't tell you much....This is a Tingarri story
AD Uh huh
FM Uh and it's about these traveling initiates
AD Mhmm
FM (who) went from place to place. But uh there's not much....You
can't tell much from these paintings and they moved to those much
more abstracted
AD Mhmm
FM kind of things. Now when I sat down with him of course he gave
me names for all these places.
AD Mhmm
FM Every circle represented some feature.
AD Mhmm...great.
((FM walks back to painting on the table))
FM And this one...(I don't know if you can get this) [painted wooden
dish]
AD Yeah
FM was painted by um Shorty Lungkarta who was in my book named "Maantja"
AD Uh huh
FM is uh...my...the person I did the life history with. And he was...he
and Freddy and Wuta Wuta were my...probably my closest uh um...people
that most closely that I worked with in the first...years. And he...(this)....I
think he was the most extraordinary painter in terms of his imagination
and also he was a dancer....And this is a place (?) was that he...um
I haven't looked at it in two years...but uh uh um called Kungka
Kutjarra Dreaming uh which is "Two Women."
AD Mhmm
FM And this is....He's made all these things fit in this place and
it's uh..this is probably a um....It's a creek...(it's) an area around
a creek. And these are these women sitting. And these are their legs.
And they're moving up and around the area around that creek. And
this is a soakage. But it certainly represents as well a ceremony
having been done by that...that those two women were involved in
AD Mhmm
FM um at the time. Now for the...the Kungka Kutjarra traveled all
along the Sir Frederick Range area...uh coming up this...which is
where his country was. These paint...the other painters are from
much further west than...than Shorty was. And uh the Kungka Kutjarra
often had digging sticks. That's what these are.
AD Mhmm
FM And they probably represent also a ceremonial object but I never
saw the ceremony for this.
AD Mhmm
FM And uh this is...you can (?) sort of fading now. But this is
another...um feature in this sort of geography
AD Mhmm
FM of the area. And then moving around...here's their digging sticks
again...(they're) sitting down.
AD You think over time that
FM (Well see) this is probably what I really think this is
AD Mhmm
FM is that this is a ceremony and they would have a circle and a
circle here and they'd be sitting on it.
AD I see.
FM And I think that's very likely.
AD So they would be very big?
FM They wouldn't be that big. They would be you know.....They might
be. But they might have a circle (or) they might have uh
AD stick
FM you know something sitting in the ground
AD Uh huh
FM or spears sticking up.
AD Uh huh
FM I mean it's...you know.
AD Right
FM These...these are...to look at them as paintings on a flat surface
AD Uh huh
FM is probably not how their ritual imagin...you know where they're
coming from.
AD Mhmm
FM And a lot of this stuff when I would look at these uh paintings
and you really find out more they're not just representations of
place, but they're representations of a place as in a way standing
for a whole...um...um ritual space. So they have all these elements
like that represent the um uh components of ritual headress and so
on
AD Mhmm
FM that uh....You think you're seeing a picture of the place but
in fact the hill is something that's represented in a form that looks
like the headress
AD Mhmm
FM that becomes the hill
AD Mhmm
FM in the Dreaming.
AD Mhmm
FM So there's a kind of uh leakage or back and forth between all
these different referents, the place, the ceremony. Because the ceremony,
which was usually what the ancestors were doing, is what created
the place.
AD Mhmm
FM Or they're depicting in the painting, in a way, a transformation
of the ritual
AD Mhmm
FM that they do to represent the place
AD Mhmm
FM and the events that took place in the Dreaming. So,
AD Mhmm
FM what you're getting (here) it's almost better to imagine what
you see on a plane as somehow the projection of a whole ritual experience
of a place that has turned into a whole a bunch of its elements.
AD Mhmm
FM And so if you see it as just a map...
AD yeah
FM you're getting something that will tell you the whole story but
you're not getting the..the kind of complex ... um....And so, in
a way you know, we look at them just as, as aesthetic features which
I think they are
((FM walks back toward the painting leaning against the couch))
AD Mhmm
FM but I think that it's....And they'll even tell you, "This
story's a Dreaming and it's very important. It's the truth. I didn't
make it up." But what they're trying [to say in the words] "they
didn't make it up" is it's not just these places and the things
happened, but its truth for them is um contained or valorized and
validated by the experience of these objects in ritual and their
body paintings. So there's uh um....You're really not getting much
in the way of the kind of access to what it must be in their own
imaginations.
AD Right. That's what I was going to ask you.
FM (Yeah)
AD Do you think over time for you that these things have acquired
different meaning for you?
FM (They're all)) for me...they're all um linked to the people who
painted them
AD Mhmm
FM which is not necessa...is part of how they imagined them. But
it's not...I don't think....What I like about the...is they um....One,
I think that they...the sort of aesthetic gifts that people have.
AD Mhmm
FM Two, that it sort of represents for me, as it represents for
them, something about their lives that's really important to them
but that they shared with me.
AD I see.
FM Because I spent a lot of time with them when they were painting.
But it doesn't have for me that inside sense that it might have for
them that you know...
AD Mhmm
FM When they're painting these things and singing these songs
AD Mhmm
FM I imagine sometimes times that they're...they're inside the ritual
sometime and pushing its components out on to this um
AD Mhmm
FM on to a two dimensional plane.
AD Mhmm
FM And you can see that if you look at uh...the crayon drawings
that Western Desert people did for uh Mountford that he published
in a book that was withdrawn from circulation called Nomads of the
Western Desert but also for Tindale that were collected. And they
would do these drawings of places
AD Mhmm
FM that were made up of the place and rituals. I mean you can see
it in the earlier times....In the first paintings that the Pintupi
did
AD Mhmm
FM are much less just the place but they have little naturalistic
representations of men dancing
AD Uh huh
FM who were the ancestral figures. And that's all been washed out
in favor of a more modernist
AD Yeah
FM formalist modernist two dimensional plane. When what's probably
most interesting is...is something that we can't see...which is how...you
know...that ((raising hands to head))... you know...what it was is
this multi...because it was multimedia, multiexperiential...
AD Mhmm
FM is being converted to this. And I don't think the painting can
carry (all that)
AD Right. Also the painting
FM but it does for some of them. You see I think
AD Uh huh
((FM points back toward painting on table))
FM this one does
AD Mhmm
FM and especially when it wasn't faded. I think this one [Kungka
Kutjarra]
AD Right
FM has a kind of...'cause it doesn't fit in the space.
AD Right
FM And when it doesn't fit so much in the space it's kind of exploding
out of it you get this feeling that there's more
AD Mhmm
FM Um...that they're transposing something on to this kind of space.
((points to painting hanging on the wall)) This one is really like
a body painting which was made up of...you'd have....They would paint
these on their bodies...like a circle here, a circle here, a circle
here, circle here, circle here, circle here connected with this (?).
This [Kirpinnga] is really (model)...
AD Uh huh
FM This right here.
AD Uh huh
FM And uh or like this without these two on the side. There's a
kind of standard uh...decorative form
AD Mhmm
FM that's used in a lot of ceremonies for different places but is
a kind of standard...grid
AD Mhmm
FM for the representation. And that one has it. ((points to another
painting hanging on the wall)) You see it's different but it sort
of has some of the same..
AD Mhmm...yeah
FM um modality.
AD So, for them there was...this...what we're seeing in a...in the
modern sense of the painting is the product, but in fact for them
the whole process of preparation and being together and all of that
FM Right
AD was part of
FM Yeah
AD the same thing.
((child walks into room))
FM ((to child)) hello....Yeah and I think that the medium can't...
AD Mhmm
FM really invoke all that. What I did when I collected some paintings
like these for the Burke Museum (and so on) was to collect the...
singing the songs of the place.
AD Mhmm
FM But even that's only really very partial.
AD Partial
FM Right, 'cause...well ( ? )...
AD Okay.
((Camera turned off))
((Tape begins again with recording of Pintupi songs playing))
AD Okay, I'm recording.
FM This is Wuta Wuta Tjangala singing about his country ( ? )...
AD About that painting over there?
FM No a different one.
((long pause))
FM This is a trip [1981] in which we took some younger men out to
visit their country that they hadn't seen.
AD Uh huh
FM A younger man said to Wuta Wuta you have to tell me about this
story because you might die and then no one would know ((laughs))...((camera
travels to painting resting against wall)) I gotta...I'm gonna to
give this to a museum.... This one.
((Longer pause as camera travels around to different paintings))
((FM turns off song recording))
AD Okay.
FM God I haven't listen to this stuff...I really...it's...it's weird
isn't it.
AD What are they talking about?
FM They're singing um.. .songs...from this Tingarri cycle
AD Uh huh
FM of the...that's uh...um...we...we drove out uh on a road that
sort of uh...it's part of...on a plain that goes through all these...actually
a lot of these paintings are uh in that plain. And uh so they (are)...
AD Mhmm
FM In this case so they're talking about....This the old man Wuta
Wuta was telling them...he's the authority you see
AD Mhmm
FM (over) all these places....He was the old man there. He's uh...he
like...he's uh...transmitting, as they say...anthropologically, transmitting
knowledge ((laughs)) his way. And you know he'd tell jokes and he...not
jokes, but they'd tell funny things that happened.
AD Mhmm
FM And uh...and uh
AD You mean that happened.
FM the ancestral
AD Oh, I see.
FM beings had done but also things that relatives had done when
they lived out there.
AD I see. So they mixed the the different times.
FM They moved back and forth
AD Yeah
FM between uh...uh times. It's always...it's very quite clear to
the participants I mean they're not conflating them.
AD Yeah
FM (but)
((end tape))
Notes
1 Douglas Lockwood (1964).