artist – Sheila Nungarrayi Sims

community – Central & Western Desert (Warlukurlangu Artists)

title: Mina Mina Dreaming

year painted: 2025

dimensions: 30 x 30cm

medium: Acrylic on canvas

stretched: yes

about this painting:

The Mina Mina Jukurrpa tells of a group of ancestral Warlpiri women (karnta) who travelled from west to east during the Dreamtime, beginning at the highly sacred site of Mina Mina. There, digging sticks (karlangu) rose from the ground, and the women collected them, danced, and set out on a long journey. As they travelled, they gathered bush foods such as desert truffles (jintiparnta), bush potatoes, yams, and goanna, and created many important places across the landscape.

Along their journey, the women passed through significant sites, sometimes stopping to dance or rest. At Waka­kurrku, they stuck their digging sticks into the ground, which transformed into mulga trees that still grow there today. At other places, their actions shaped the land and established cultural knowledge, including food practices and ceremonial traditions that Warlpiri women continue to use.

Eventually, the women split into groups, travelling both eastward and northward, but all became homesick for their desert oak country in the west and returned to Mina Mina, where they stayed. The story also explains important cultural roles and relationships between men and women, noting that in earlier times women held ritual power and sacred objects now associated with men.

The Mina Mina Jukurrpa remains a central source of Warlpiri ceremonial law, social organisation, and art. In paintings, symbols such as lines, circles, and patterns represent the women, their digging sticks, bush foods, plants, clothing, and the sacred sites created during their journey.

This artwork can be viewed at our Sydney gallery.