Mantua James Nangala

Mantua was a young girl when her father Anatjari Tjampitjinpa and her mother Mamuriu Napaltjarri came in from the desert in 1963.
They were one of the last groups to do so under the direction of Welfare Patrols.

The patrol, with Nosepeg Tjupurrula and a Tjampitjinpa from Papunya, had been looking for them on the road i.e the original road made by Len Beadel west into W.A. from Sandy Blight Junction.

They met at ‘Mukala’. At the time Mantua and her family were living on ‘Bush Mangari’ i.e. damper made from seeds, and were getting scarce water from rockholes.

Nangala and her family travelled to Papunya by truck with the Welfare Patrol.
This is well-documented and photographs of Nangala and the group appear in ‘The Lizard Eaters’, a book by Douglas Lockwood.
Mantua’s sister from her fathers side, is the famous artist Yinarupa Nangala.

Mantua trained as a health care worker and in 1984 was involved with the first contact of the last group to come out of the Gibson Desert, they are her Tjapaltjarri Uncles, her Mothers brothers. Nangala now lives at Kiwirrkura.

Mantua learnt to paint whilst assisting her father at Kintore in the early 1980s.
Mantua paints designs associated with the secret Tingari ceremonies at the site of Tjulna, located South-East of Kiwirrkura, and other sites.
This “Tingari Dreaming” is traditionally painted in black and white, yet Mantua uses colours that represent the landscape at different seasons, as well as drought and flood cycles.