Charlotte Phillipus Napurrula

In this painting the circle represents an important water or rock hole site that Charlotte and her family knew they could rely on for water. The background design symbolises ceremonial body paint designs and the country crossed by the Ancestors. The rock holes were replenished when it rained. Knowledge of where to find water was handed down from generation to generation to ensure survival in the desert. Aboriginal people believe the Creation or Dreamtime is the beginning of ‘knowledge’, when the laws of existence were put together. It is also the beginning of time when the supernatural Ancestral beings were born out of their own eternity. It is saild the Ancestors moved across the barren surface of the world, hunting and fighting. They changed the form of the land creating the mountains, rivers, trees, plains, water holes and sand hills. The Ancestors were honoured by Aboriginal people in corroborees performed at sacred sites where the spirit of the Ancestors had become part of the landscape, or turned into entities such as rocks or trees.