Doreen Dickson Nakamarra

This painting is about the seeds that the Aboriginal women collect in their country. Typically, in Warlpiri country, these seeds would be wattle seeds. These seeds fall from the trees and can be found sometimes in quite deep layers. They collect them up and take them back to camp and grind them up to make flour. This is mixed with a little salt and some water and baked above hot rocks to make damper – or bush bread. Damper is one of the staple food sources of Aboriginal desert people. The painting shows some sandhills or maybe creeks as the wavy lines. The leaves of the tree are the curved elements and the white dots represent the seeds. The fine dotted background is the pattern that the women would paint on their breasts for ceremony. Their custom dictates that you paint up and dance and sing to honour the ancestral beings of that part of the country and also to engender a proliferation of this bush tucker in the forthcoming season.