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West MacDonnell Ranges, Going Out Country Visiting with my Family
$3,500.00
This is my Country, my Grandfather’s Country and my Father’s Country. We been coming here with my family, with my Mum and Dad and my Grandfather. My Grandfather used to tell me stories about this Country, how it’s really special for all of my little family and my Father too.
My Father told me about things, about how the waterholes they are really special, the gorge is so special and it has stories. When you come to see the Country you have to speak out loud or throw a rock or get a sand and throw it in the water and the spirit will know you. He send wind to smell you to sense your spirit. He’ll know if you’re coming and smell if theres a water spirit in the water, and you can get into the water and not feel frightened. Water spirit that means the serpent, Rainbow Serpent. When you go out to Ellery Bighole, my Country you know, to Ormiston and Glen Helen and Redbank there’s a serpent there.
When we go to Two Mile you have to do the same. Every time when it’s school holidays I take my little kids and my little family to Two Mile and I talk to the river to give fish or how to swim safe. And the water goes up, when you talk, the sand goes up and you just feel safe, because you welcomed yourself and your little families to swim in that water. The spirit, he knows that you’re in the water and you’re saying that you come to visit your Country and to keep kids safe in the water, not to harm them and to look after them.
When I go to my Country I say ‘This is my Grandfather’s Country and my Dad’s Country and for me and my brothers and sisters’. They’re all with me when I go for Country visiting in the school holiday. We go for swim, making kangaroo tail, making damper, drinking cup of tea. The kids like to run around, playing in the sand, making little sandcastle.
And some tourists there, in the caravan, in the swag, in the tent. The tourists like coming to visting Country from far away, or Alice Springs, and they like to camp out and they love this Two Mile. It’s good for you to watch from the distance, looking at the mountain, looking at the gorge and looking at the river flowing. And they like to hike around the mountain, maybe. They go in the morning, hike up the Larapinta Trail maybe.
Beth Inkamala Mbitjana grew up in Ntaria (Hermannsburg), where she recalls observing her aunties working with pottery in the 1990s. As an adult she moved to Papunya with her husband and child, where they remained for 9 years. During this time Beth painted at the art centre in Papunya. In 2014 Beth started working at the Ntaria School as an assistant teacher. In this role she has taken an active part in facilitating the ‘pots that tell stories’ program, supporting the senior artists to mentor the children of Ntaria School. In 2014 Beth starting making her own work, developing a distinctive style. Since then Beth has dedicated more and more time to her pottery and is one of the more ambitious potters of the group. Beth is disciplined in her work, and her dedication to the Potters, interest in her local community and the world around her is taking her from strength to strength. Beth is the current Chair of Hermannsburg Potters.
