Josephine Nangala

This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Nyilla, north of Jupiter Well in Western Australia. There is a series of four rockholes at this site.

A group of ancestral women gathered at this site to perform the dances and sing the songs associated with the area. They later continued their travels further east eventually passing through the Kiwirrkura area. During their journey they gathered edible berries and seeds including the edible fruit known as pura or bush tomato from the small shrub Solanum chippendalei, and desert raisins from the plant Solanum centrale. These berries can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked in the coals to form a type of damper.