Paddy Japaljarri Stewart

The dreaming depicted here belongs to me. It is the Wedge-tailed Eagle Dreaming. The Eagle made himself a nest in his country, and once he had done that he used to fly off to another place in search of prey, to Wakurlpu and the country around there. (Of course, the Eagle was human originally). He moved around all day. He went to Kilyarlpa and perched there, in a nest he made in the fork of a tree, just like humans do when they build themselves shelters. From his nest he used to fly off in search of prey, looking for animals such as a small wallabies. Then he would return home again. As he was flying around in search of prey, it would become very late and he would go through the sky. ‘Oh I see there’s nothing. There’s no meat for me,’ he would say to himself as he flew through the air. ‘I can’t even see any tracks.’ Many others came to see him in his nest. Sometimes they would come in large numbers, sometimes just two at a time… just like we humans do when we visit our relations. They would come and all live together, and the Eagle would leave them and go to look for prey. If he came across a wallaby he would swoop down on top of it and pierce it with his sharp talons, grabbing hold of it, not in his beak, but in his talons. He would carry it home to his little ones and to their mother. They would be waiting for him. The mother Eagle had eggs and stayed and looked after them while the father went out to get meat for the family. He would bring his prey back in one piece, put it down and give it to his family. He would then go off to another place. He was somewhat crazed originally. He would go to places around Wakurlpu in search of prey and would say to himself, ‘I’m going to the same place.’ He would fly through the sky and then land back in his own country. We hold rituals and ceremonies for that dreaming. I am giving a very superficial account of this Dreaming story, about how Eagle used to fly and swoop down through the air: this Dreaming belongs to us, to the Jungarrayi-Japaljarri section. This Eagle was always very hungry and starving for meat. He would find a kangaroo, for example, and would eat the whole lot. The Eagle kills kangaroos. It is a very big bird – huge. The Eagle and the place created for us by the Eagle Dreaming are very important. Eagle would have one egg in its nest. Once hatched, the young bird would grow up in the nest; then, when the westerly winds came, it would take off. That nest is now a tall rocky hill which we call Kilyarlpa. Thus it was created from the Eagle Dreaming. It stands all alone, like the Eagle’s lone nest and its single egg, in open flat country. I painted this Dreaming story as it was shown to me by my father and elder brothers. They showed me the earth created by the Dreaming and told me about it. They told me to always remember it. They performed the rituals for this Dreaming. From that one Dreaming come all the eagles that live around us today that we see flying overhead. Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu Doors, Kuruwarri, page 71, Door 15