Lingka

$2,800.00

My father left his country when that bomb went off, and walked in to Cundeelee Mission, that’s when I was born. He saved me and my brothers and sisters from that poison smoke. We lived there for a while. My father always sat down in the mission and made kuḻaṯa (spears), kaḻi (boomerangs) and kupulu (clubs).

We were moved to Coonana Station when the Cundeelee well ran out of water. Coonana was no good, too close to town [Kalgoorlie] – everybody was drinking and fighting there. The old people got fed up, this not Spinifex people, they reckon. They just started walking home, they brought us with them. They used that old army truck as well, used it to bring food and swags and tents and all. My father, he walked us away from the bomb and now he took us back home. My father is one of the last ones left … he’s 90-something years old, they reckon. He’s proper desert man, an early days man we call him. I reckon he’s still going because he was always walking … He walked whole way to Irrunytju one time from Cundeelee, just to have a look. Must have taken months and months. He slow now but he’s still walking around.

Whole time in Tjuntjuntjara he’s been painting his country. That place is called Lingka, he just thinks of that place all the time. His memory is no good anymore but always talking that Lingka story. I went there once with him, we went for a ride on a chopper though, easy way. Kapi piṯi puḻka ngarinyi (there’s a really big rockhole at that place). Strong Tjukurpa there, I think that’s the story he always thinking about. That Tjukurpa one … keeps him going.

Seeing him paint made me want to paint my way. I paint Upupily-upupilya; that’s the Tjukurpa place close up to Cundeelee. My painting was at Desert Mob last year with a big painting; now you mob can see my father’s one.

Michael Hogan son of Simon Hogan and a director of Spinifex Arts Project

Simon Hogan was born in mid-western Spinifex between Paltju and Lingka. During childhood two fathers, one born at Warakunu and the other at Munki raised Simon. Simon’s mother’s country is around Tjulya. As a late teenager or nyiingka, Simon and an older brother made an epic journey from the Spinifex lands to a Christian Mission at Mt. Margaret. Simon returned to the Great Victoria Desert and after initiation travelled across the Serpentine Lakes into South Australia to find a wife. He married Inyika and they had children before going to Cundeelee Mission around 1960. A second wife, Ngantiri, also traveled in with Simon’s family group. From 1995 Simon Hogan was a prominent member of a group of senior traditional owners from Spinifex country who lobbied the WA State Government for Native Title. Exclusive Native Title rights were granted to Simon Hogan and the Spinifex people in 2000 of over 55000 sq kms of the Great Victoria Desert in WA. In 1997 the Spinifex people began painting with acrylic paints on canvas, painting traditional stories using this contemporary medium. The Spinifex people also produced collaborative works two of which, mens and womens, were used in the preamble to the successful Spinifex Native Title claim.