Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri

Ngoia Pollard is a Warlpiri woman, born in Haasts Bluff in the late 1940’s. She was brought up at Haasts Bluff and remembers when people rode on camels to travel anywhere, and also talks of the time when women and young girls had to look after herds of goats. In her recollections, it was a happy time. She attended Papunya School in the 1960’s along with Lilly Kelly Napangardi. After attending school Ngoia worked in the mission kitchen before moving with her husband to Kintore. Following a period of 5 years living at Kintore, Ngoia and her husband moved to Mt. Liebig, which at the time was unoccupied. Living in a humpy with her husband and family, they received rations from Papunya on the basis of their status as an outstation. Ngoia remembers that this food supply was supplemented with hunting in the area

Ngoia began painting in 1997, painting her father’s country, sacred Warlpiri territory associated with narratives relating to the Watersnake. The oval shapes in Ngoia’s paintings are iconographic representations of the swamps and lakes near Nyrripi (Talarada) north west of Mt. Liebig. Ngoia depicts the wet and dry characteristics of this country. This region is charged with the spiritual presence of the Water snake which lives beneath the surface and Ngoia describes this area as being dangerous. The area is currently unoccupied Walpiri land. This area however, is where her father hunted prior to white settlement. Ngoia has special custodianship responsibilities for this country.