TOWN CAMP YARNS: Tangentyere 2016
Past exhibition
Nyinta Donald Peipei Australian, Arrente, b. 1946
Untitled
acrylic on linen
41 x 141 cm
833339
This painting is about Kapi and bush tucker. The long lines that move through the painting indicate Kapi [water] travelling into swampy areas [the red circles]. Here you find yalke...
This painting is about Kapi and bush tucker. The long lines that move through the painting indicate Kapi [water] travelling into swampy areas [the red circles]. Here you find yalke [bush onion - the white marks on black towards the outside of the painting. Also birds' eggs [the white dots in the central circle]. The small red dots are Mangata [Native Quandong fruit]. Yalke is a tiny sweet little onion that you can eat raw or cooked. This vegetable grows in soft sand, near creeks, waterholes and salty swamps. We dig for them with a digging stick, or rake our fingers through the ground - they're just there, loose. Your grandparents tell you where they are. You can eat them raw or cook them up in the coals. You just peel off one or two layers of skin and eat them’. Yalke is important food during drought, and has strong Tjukurrpa associations that span cultural and linguistic groups. Quandong are another important bush food much loved across Central Australia.