24-162 – Ngamaru Bidu

“Yiranang claypan, near [Canning Stock Route] Well 24. It’s a [seed] grinding place. You know that kalaru (samphire, salt bush)? Green one, it grows in the Kaalpa (Kalypa, Canning Stock Route Well 23) area. He grows there, I’ll show you. You make a damper from him. But no kalaru there in Yiranang.

All the bushes there, wintamarra (mulga tree), and tuwa (sandhills). I was walking there as a young girl. No man, single woman. All the women were there; me, Kumpaya [Girgirba], Jakayu [Biljabu], Bugai [Whyoulter], my mother. We would walk there.”

– Ngamaru Bidu

Yiranang is a large claypan located just north of Kartarru (Canning Stock Route Well 24). Forming part of Ngamaru’s ngurra (home Country, camp), Yiranang was one of the sites Ngamaru knew intimately and travelled extensively with her family and other family groups, such as the Girgirba, Biljabu and Whyoulter families. Linyji (claypans) like Yiranang were typically visited more often during the wantajarra (wet season) as they filled with water. 

Ngamaru also recalls Yiranang as a ‘grinding place’; here the black kalaru seeds collected from nearby Kaalpa were first washed several times before being ground with jiwa (stones used by women for grinding seeds) to make a type of flour, which was then mixed with water to create a dough that was finally cooked in the ashes of a fire. Kalaru seeds were seasonally harvested in the yalijarra (hot dry months).

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) period Martu would traverse very large distances annually, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. 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.