About Ormay Nangala Gallagher, Enid Nangala Gallagher and Maisie Napurrurla Wayne
Three senior Warlpiri Knowledge Holders discuss Southern Ngaliya Women’s Dance Project, its intergenerational benefits and their connections to Country and culture.
Ormay Nangala Gallagher was born in Alice Springs. Her upbringing was mainly in Yuendumu where she attended the local Yuendumu school, then Yirara College and Sadadeen College. She worked at the Nyirrpi store between 1986-1994. Between 1995 and 2004 she worked at the Nyirrpi school as a teacher. She did her teachers training through Batchelor College.
Ormay has authored and contributed to many children’s educational books teaching Warlpiri language and culture. She is a highly respected artist, closely associated with the Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation in Yuendumu and Nyirripi.
Enid Nangala Gallagher was born in Yuendumu, NT, and attended schooling there and in Darwin and Alice Springs. Enid has trained for teaching primary grades, worked with Mt Theo as a cultural mentor, is a Mt Theo board member, holds a Waltja certificate in leadership and a Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education Graduate Interpreters Qualification.
Enid has worked for NT Department of Children and Families, Remote Aboriginal Families and Children, as part of a team to support families and clients in Yuendumu, Nyirrpi, Willowra and Yuelumu. Enid joined the Mt Theo WYDAC (Warlpiri Youth Development Aboriginal Corporation) Committee in 2004 serving for periods as Chairperson and has attended several conferences on behalf of the program.
Enid has been the Cultural Custodian of the Southern Ngaliya Women’s Dance Project since its inception in 2010. Enid is a mother of four and grandmother of six.
Maisie Napurrurla Wayne was born in Ti-Tree, a small service town on the Stuart Highway, 193 km north from Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory. When Maisie was young she moved to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 north-west of Alice Springs. Maisie lived with her Grandmother. She has grown up and lived most of her life in Yuendumu, attending the local school, then marrying and bringing up her children. She is now a widow, but has a large family who care for her. She has two daughters, Elanore and Sara, 6 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. Maisie is an active member of the community. She works at the Women’s Centre as well as working in Mental Health with the Yuendumu Community Health Centre. She attended a mental health course in Darwin. Maisie has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre in Yuendumu, since 1994.
Southern Ngaliya Women’s Dance Camp has been running since 2010 in collaboration with Incite Arts and Yuendumu Women’s Centre, sponsored by GMAAAC.
https://www.incitearts.org.au/programs/southern-ngaliya-dancers/
Video Transcript
Can you please tell is a little bit about yourselves and this place?
Hello, my name is Ormay Nangala Gallagher. I’m from Yuendumu. I’m a mother of two and a grandmother of two. Yuwayi [yes], so I work at the school at Yuendumu. Before that, I was working at Nyirripi School for 10 years. Yuwayi, and my Tjukurpa—my Tjukurpa, Dreaming, is about rain. Rain and lightning and emu. That’s my father’s Dreaming.
I’m gonna talk about where I am. I’m at Old Nyirripi, and this Old Nyirripi belongs to mixed men, like Jampijimpa, Jangala. But it really belongs to Japurrurla and Jakamarra. This creek is about two kangaroos. Two kangaroos, two marlu, that went—travel to Ayers Rock, all the way to Pitland.
And on the side, there is a snake that came in from Kunagerie. Yeah, it frightened these two kangaroos. And those two kangaroos took off; they were coming from north. And here, family used to camp here at Old Nyirripi. I came here when I was 12 and stayed with my stepmum and dad. And they were the ones that told us stories about this creek. Yuwayi.
Hello, my name is Maisie Wayne, Napurrurla. I born at Yuendumu.
[Speaking Warlpiri]
She said that girls dance camp started in 2010 at Mission Creek. And they did body painting, putting designs on the girls’ bodies, their grandfathers’ dreaming.
My name is Enid Nangala Gallagher and I come from Yuendumu.
Can you tell us some more about the Warlpiri girl’s dance camps?
And about the girls’ dance camps, we started with the old ladies. We went to Mission Creek for the first one. And it was raining and we made humpies, but it was all right; we still did the dancing. The old ladies painted the girls with their fathers’ designs, father’s dreamings—we call it Tjukurpa—and dancing in family groups. We also had Nyirripi ladies bringing the girls over to Mission Creek, Mission Creek.
And we did that in 2010 and we kept on going. We did the dances every year, two times a year, during the school holidays. And we also invited other three Warlpiri communities: Nyirripi, Willowra, and Lajamanu. We all speak the same language. And when we finish the dancing on the last day, we choose a place where to next. So we chose Nyirripi last year, and we are here now at Nyirripi—Old Nyirripi. But we also have been going to Lajamanu, Willowra, and countries and outstations around Yuendumu, like Beantree, Jurlpungu, Chilla Well, Wyalilimpa, Ngarlukurlangu, and Newhaven.
We also had ladies telling stories about the places where we were going. We don’t only do dancing, we also take the girls out on country to show their grandfathers’ dreamings and Tjukurpa, where they used to live in the old days with their families. So it’s good to keep the young people know about their grandfather’s country and the Tjukurpa. And they lived off the land in the old days. So that’s what we find: getting bush food and seeing rockholes, water places, and sometimes rock art.
Why is it important for the Warlpiri communities to keep women’s dance and culture strong?
With the girls’ dance camp, we are teaching the girls the Tjukurpa to keep on knowing and having the knowledge about their grandfathers’ country and Tjukurpa. And we also get the girls to draw on paper, like what we did today and in the past as well. We also did paintings. The girls, when they wanted their Tjukurpa to be on the canvas, they were sitting with elders, like Nakamarra, an elder and a young girl learning from the elder. And the elders teaching and showing how the Tjukurpa is and how to do it correctly, and just to know how the dreaming went from place to place. Or maybe it’s at a place where people can go and see the place where people have lived long before us.
And dance camp, we get ready and mostly girls come with us and they feel excited when they’re at the camp. When it’s time for them to get dressed for dancing, they come and sit with the elders. They know which person that they can go to. For example, there’s Nungarrayi, so I can go over there and sit down with Nungarrayi. Yuwayi. I go sit over there, so she’s got the same dreaming, Tjukurpa. And when the kids are painted, we get them dressed with feathers. We give them the colour of the feather that they are related to. Yuwayi, you’re blue—you’re Ngapa [water] one—you’re going to have blue feathers. That’s what we were teaching them. And also, we teach them to [paint on] canvas. Then for…, yuwayi, elders are there to help them too.
How do you feel when you do the dances?
Really proud. They didn’t want to wash away their paint; they want to keep it there.
When they do the dance, in the dance they got songlines too, which they connected to that Tjukurpa. Yuwayi. And they dance to it, which they are the Kirrda dancing and you’ve got the kurdungulu on the side dancing. Yuwayi. Yeah, kurdungulu—caretaker, yeah, they are there to help them. Yuwayi.
Have you performed the dances at festivals?
Yeah, we did dance at the Dance Site at Tennant Creek. It was really good. We danced in, I think, four—like there was Ngapa group. Ngapa group—Nangala and Nampijimpa, and there was two Napurrurlas dancing, like Maisie and the one that passed on, and Napangardis—my mother and her sister, and Madeleine doing Mt Theo dance. And these two did the Ngulu [seed dance] and we did Ngapa [water dance]. And there was also other groups from different communities doing their own dances, and everybody really liked our groups because we had from older ladies right through to young girls, and there was something different for them to see. Yeah, and we also did dance at the Desert Park during the—I forgot now that one they had in the Desert Park inside and going to other places to see—not other places, but different areas in the Desert Park, yeah.
When it started in 2010, some of the girls were maybe under 10, and still going as teenagers coming along to the dance camps. And some of them now have kids. And those kids from the young girls, they followed their mothers’ footsteps, going to the dance camps, and they like it very much.
Are the dance camps helping to maintain Warlpiri women’s cultural knowledges for future generations?
Yes, it is still maintained in watching videos, doing dances, and in books and photos.
How does participating in the dances abd songs affect your wellbeing?
Some people say that it’s healing them because that’s their song and it makes them feel better and proud.
What other cultural knowledge do you teach the girls and younger women on the camps?
Yuwayi, we don’t only do dance. During the four days we’re out bush, we also take girls out on country to see what bush food they can collect or bush medicine. And when we tell them “this is your grandfather’s country” they are really proud to see it and they want a photo of them at that place, and it makes them really proud. And we also do painting on canvas, and we tell the girls “You go to that one there, that’s your group” like Napurrurla, Napurrurla and Nakamarra, Nangala and Nampijimpa, Nungurrayi and Napaljarri, and Napanangka and Napangardi. The young girls, they know their skin groups, so they go to those areas and sit down and listen to what the elders are saying and teaching them what are the songs they can do, and that makes them really proud and strong and they are still doing it.