13-192 – Bugai Whyoulter

‘Jartijiti’ is how Martu people pronounce ‘33’, the colloquial name for the Kunawarritji community where Bugai lives and paints. Kunawarritji is an important site in the Great Sandy Desert where multiple stories and histories intersect. Originally an important spring kapi (water), at the turn of the 20th century Kunawarritji became a well (Well 33) along the Canning Stock Route. Each year throughout the 1930-50s, the well became a site of contact between the drovers, their cattle, and desert families such as Bugai’s. Long before colonial history entered this country, other stories dominated this site. In the Jukurrpa (Dreaming), the Minyi Puru (Seven Sisters) stopped here and shaped a number of landforms before continuing on their epic journey east across the desert. Today, Kunawarritji is a site of return, a place where people have come back to continue making their life in the desert. Bugai continues to live at and look after ‘Jartijiti’ today, painting it and the many other life-giving waterholes of her country further south along the Stock Route.