The fire story track maps out a path leading from the site of Warlugulong, west of Yuendumu, through sandhill and mountain country as far south as Watarru in the Great Victoria Desert. The fire ancestor is the maker of life. In this canvas the ancestral being’s initial journey is depicted: the journey also serves to tell people of the desert region where their particular stories begin and end. Adjacent to this particular story track are many others, like that focused on the site of Watiyawanu, where Mt Liebig community stands today. Ancestral creatures and presences such as the Honey Ant (Tjupi) and the Mala are also present in this landscape, indeed their traces shape and constitute it, and their various winding journey-lines cross each other. According to the artist, “they tell us that we have many ties to neighbouring stories as well. This is a mapping in an image of our life and our connections and our songs, of ownership of traditions, of bonds among people, of friendships, relationships, links in life.” The colours in the canvas express the intensity of the
ancestral fire as it travelled, furnacing the world in its molten heat. The lines in white trace the fire-front in its initial journey, which is commemorated in ceremonial dance and song to this day; the reds and ochres and darker oranges and pale yellows reenact the hue of the flames burning on the face of the new-made land.