24-1236 – Ruebina Gibbs

“I was born near Lipuru (Libral Well, Canning Stock Route Well 37). My mother looked after me when I was a little baby in the side of a sandhill. Mum and Dad, they took care of me. We stayed there for a long time when I was little and then we started travelling… When I was getting bigger [between 2-4 years old] and they took me to Walamalu. We stayed there in Walamalu and then we went to Wajaparni, and as I got older then I could walk for myself and I used to hunt small lizards.”

 – Nora Nungabar (Nyangapa) (dec.), as translated by Ngalangka Nola Taylor 

Wajaparni is a waterhole that was converted into a well along the Canning Stock Route in the early 1900s. This site lies within Nungabar’s ngurra (home Country, camp), and was a site where she spent an extended period with her family as a young girl. 

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time knowledge of water sources was critical for survival, and today Martu Country is still defined in terms of the location and type of water. Each of the hundreds of claypans, rockholes, waterholes, soaks and springs found in the Martu desert homelands is known by name, location, quality and seasonal availability through real life experience and the recounting of Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. 

The intersection of the Canning Stock Route with Wajaparni made this a site of early contact with Europeans for many Martu then living a pujiman life in the desert. Following the route’s construction, Martu encountered Europeans and other Martu working as cattle drovers as they would travel up and down the Stock Route from water source to water source. Increasingly, pujimanpa (desert dwellers) followed the route to newly established ration depots, mission and pastoral stations. They were drawn to the route in search of food, by a sense of curiosity, or by loneliness. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, most of the desert family groups had left the desert. Eventually, these factors combined with an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s to prompt the few remaining pujimanpa to move in from the desert.