artist – Hamish Japanangka Martin

community – Central & Western Desert (Warlukurlangu Artists)

title: Snakevine Dreaming

year painted: 2025

dimensions: 30 x 30cm

medium: Acrylic on canvas

stretched: yes

about this painting:

The Ngalyipi Jukurrpa (Snakevine Dreaming) comes from Mina Mina, a highly significant ceremonial site for Warlpiri women, especially those of the Napangardi and Napanangka skin groups. Mina Mina lies west of Yuendumu and contains important landscape features such as salt lakes, soakages, sandhills, and large stands of desert oak. The Mina Mina Jukurrpa is a key source of Warlpiri ritual knowledge and social organisation, particularly concerning the roles of women and men.

The Jukurrpa tells of ancestral women (karnta) who danced at Mina Mina, causing digging sticks (karlangu) to rise from the ground. Decorated with hairstring belts, feathers, and seed necklaces, and anointed with shiny fat to increase their ritual power, the women travelled eastward carrying their digging sticks. As they journeyed, they gathered bush foods such as ngalyipi (snakevine), bush potatoes, yams, goannas, and desert truffles, and created many significant places along their route.

Ngalyipi, a rope-like vine, is especially important. It is used for ceremonial wrapping, carrying vessels, and medicine, including treating headaches and colds. The women’s travels intersect with other Dreamings, including the Witchery Grub and Snake Ancestors (walyankarna), highlighting the interconnected nature of Warlpiri Law.

Along their journey, the women passed through and shaped many sites, including places where digging sticks became trees and where important ancestral conflicts occurred. Eventually, feeling homesick for their western desert oak country, all the women returned to Mina Mina, where they stayed permanently.

The Mina Mina Jukurrpa also reflects an earlier time when women held greater ritual authority, controlling sacred objects that are now associated with men. In contemporary Warlpiri art, this Jukurrpa is represented through traditional symbols: sinuous lines for snakevine, concentric circles for gathered foods like desert truffles, and straight lines for digging sticks.

This artwork can be viewed at our Sydney gallery.