This artwork depicts the movement of the ancestral women, as they travelled on foot and marked their homeland with their digging sticks. Significant ceremonies were performed, which even today the Napangardi & Napanangka women regularly gather at the Mina Mina site in a ceremony to re-enact this Dreaming story. Here they paint each other’s bodies with Dreaming designs and chant and dance the age old creation story.

Mina Mina is the birthplace of the digging stick and a large stand of Eucalyptus trees (Casuarina Decaisneana) now stand where tradition says the digging sticks emerged from the ground.

If you would like to know more about the Salt on Mina Mina and the relationship with Aboriginal Art and culture, please read the following articles to to view video footage of Warlpiri women dancing during ceremony:

• Aboriginal Women
• Yuendumu Aboriginal Art: Aboriginal Paintings from Central Desert
• Song and dance - Aboriginal Music
• Aboriginal women dancing - Video of Warlpiri women dancing during ceremony

We recommended the book, DANCING UP COUNTRY, The Art of Dorothy Napangardi, published by Museum of Contemporary Art, which illustrates in detail Dorothy Napangardi’s Dreamings.