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Two Sisters, a true Story
Ngarta and Jukuna lived in the Great Sandy Desert. They traversed country according to the seasons, just as the Walmajarri people had done for thousands of years. But it was a time of change. Desert people who had lived with little knowledge of European settlement were now moving onto cattle stations. Those left behind were vulnerable and faced unimaginable challenges.
In 1961, when Jukuna leaves with her new husband, young Ngarta remains with a group of women and children. Tragedy strikes and Ngarta is forced to travel alone. Her survival depends on cunning and courage as she is pursued by two murderers in a vast unforgiving landscape.
Jukuna’s rich account may be the first autobiography written in an Aboriginal language. Presented in English and Walmajarri, her determination to see her language written has made her one of our most valued authors.
In 1961, when Jukuna leaves with her new husband, young Ngarta remains with a group of women and children. Tragedy strikes and Ngarta is forced to travel alone. Her survival depends on cunning and courage as she is pursued by two murderers in a vast unforgiving landscape.
Jukuna’s rich account may be the first autobiography written in an Aboriginal language. Presented in English and Walmajarri, her determination to see her language written has made her one of our most valued authors.
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 20, 2019
Really insightful book about the Aboriginal community of Australia. The natives way of living, their exasperation when invaded by the whites ;or “kartiya” in native language., and finally their disposition from native Sandhills to coastal cattle stations.
I picked up this book while travelling to Australian outback. If you happen to travel there I would definitely recommend to get a copy of this book.
I picked up this book while travelling to Australian outback. If you happen to travel there I would definitely recommend to get a copy of this book.
September 15, 2016
I have read a few books by desert people, but I haven’t read one like this. It is hard to convey the sense of wonder with which I read it. Two Sisters is an authentic account of an ancient way of life as it was lived by sisters Ngarta and Jukuna in the Great Sandy Desert, and then it covers the period when this way of life was disrupted by the coming of Europeans into the north. It is written by people who had never seen a white person or any of the accoutrements of station life, so much so that when they encounter a water tank, their first action is to placate the water spirit that they believe inhabits all the water holes that sustain them. But theirs is not a life of deficits: they led a rich, fulfilling life, learning skills of more than mere survival since childhood, and supported by a kinship system which ensured that there was always family to take care of them. It was only when this life was disrupted that there were not enough men around to enforce the law and keep everyone safe, but even then the habits of resilience and independence stand the sisters in good stead.
When I read about the teenage Ngarta taking off alone across the desert, I was stunned.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/09/15/t...
When I read about the teenage Ngarta taking off alone across the desert, I was stunned.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/09/15/t...
May 1, 2021
Reading this was a sublime experience. It took me to a transcendent place. One of the most extraordinary books I have ever read.
In the 1960s, the traditional owners of the land south of Cherrabun Station in Western Australia, the land today known as the Great Sandy Desert, left to work in white coloniser-run cattle stations, family by family. By the 1970s, nobody was left in the desert. Two sisters, Ngarta Jinny Bent (died 2002) and Jukuna Mona Chuguna, here tell their stories and memories. They remember their childhoods and youths in the desert, and they remember their move to Cherrabun Station. Both women are and were also artists, and their paintings are included in a colour-plate section in this book.
Two white women, Pat Lowe and Eirlys Richards, have supported the two artist-writers. Ngarta's story is given in the third person, as told to her interlocutors (and possibly recorded on cassette) in the late 1980s and first published in 1991. Jukuna's story is told in the first person and published her in English translation as well as in her mother tongue, Walmajarri. She wrote it down in Walmajarri in the late 1990s. Here is the beginning of her story; I copy it here because I just find it so extraordinary to be holding in my hands a bilingual book in both English and Walmajarri.
"Kurlampal marna ngunangani jarlu yapa jilijinga. Ngajukura ngarpu parla Wirtuka ngurrara. Jularni pila nganpayijarrarlu yini Kirikarrajarti nyanayirlarni. Kurriny nganpayijarra pila pirriyani jarlu ngarrangkarni. Nyanyala pilanya paja wirnkuma. Pajanani palunyanu kujangkurrajarra manawarntirla. 'Kkir! Kkir!'"
"When I was a child I lived in the sand dune country of the Great Sandy Desert to the south of Fitzroy Crossing. My father's birthplace is near the waterhole called Wirtuka. My father got his name, Kirikarrajarti, right there. It's a name that came from the ngarrangkarni (creation time or Dreamtime). In the ngarrangkarni, two men came to Wirtuka and found the place overrun by possums. They were all fighting and biting each other, some up in the trees and others down in holes in the ground. As they fought they were hissing, 'Kkir! Kkir!'"
Life in the desert revolved around (unsurprisingly) the waterholes. Waterholes are either jila (permanent) or jumu (temporary, e.g. during the Wet season). Important waterholes are inhabited by a water serpent spirit. Each person and family comes from a waterhole, and each family group walks among a network of waterholes. If a waterhole has been left untended for a while, it silts up and needs to be re-dug. People will leave tools and food for the next visitors to come after them. (This I find so moving.) The story of young Ngarta running away from some murderous men and living on her own for around a year shows how ingrained in her upbringing was the knowledge of the location of waterholes. Not once did she get lost. She always knew where to find water. The worst that happened was that once she got to a waterhole and it had dried up, and she needed to double back, going thirsty for one night.
Since my youth in Australia, I had heard stories of the supposed cruelty of traditional Aboriginal people in leaving behind their old people to die in the desert. Ngarta especially describes in detail how at least two women were left behind in this way, but it is not at all cruel. The first woman was a young relative whose little son had died of a sickness. The woman struck her head with rocks in her grief and asked to be left behind. Her family refused and took her with them. But she kept pleading with them and finally she was left behind, with a little water. Young Ngarta is distraught and starts to cry and ask, "Why did you leave her?" But her mother told her that it was as the younger woman had wished, "and there was nothing to be done." At the next camping place, they told the others. "Everyone was crying." What strikes me is the respect for the young woman's wishes. It makes me think about today's debates around the right to determine one's own death (in UK, there is the Dignity in Dying and the My Death, My Decision campaign). What also strikes me is the sorrow and grief felt by people when children die and when another family member dies. It makes me realise how callous were the racist allegations that I heard in my youth as if indigenous people felt no love and sorrow.
At another point, an older relative asks to die, and with great sorrow her family members leave her with a little water. My father died last month, and I have been thinking a lot about when is the right time to die. I realise that when one dies peacefully, in old age, there is a sense of it being the right time, of the soul being ready and even willing to let go. My realisation sheds another light on this old Aborginal woman asking for death; life has become a burden and death is there to welcome her. All of these accounts are very moving to me.
Also interesting is the way in which several people in the two sisters' stories are able to identify individuals by their footprints. And when Ngarta escapes the two murderous men, she takes care to tread on clumps of grass so as not to leave footprints behind. People also kept in touch with each other by lighting fires and the smoke would let others know where they were and that all was OK.
I had a glimpse into a life lived so far removed from my present-day life, so far away from the Industrial Revolution and capitalism and consumer commerce and modern telecommunications and also far removed from cities, temperate climate zones, agriculture and a settler lifestyle. It made me think: what are we humans?
Thank you to the Reading Women Challenge for the prompt "Memoir by an indigenous woman". Researching the prompt made me discover this wonderful, uplifting and brain-changing book.
In the 1960s, the traditional owners of the land south of Cherrabun Station in Western Australia, the land today known as the Great Sandy Desert, left to work in white coloniser-run cattle stations, family by family. By the 1970s, nobody was left in the desert. Two sisters, Ngarta Jinny Bent (died 2002) and Jukuna Mona Chuguna, here tell their stories and memories. They remember their childhoods and youths in the desert, and they remember their move to Cherrabun Station. Both women are and were also artists, and their paintings are included in a colour-plate section in this book.
Two white women, Pat Lowe and Eirlys Richards, have supported the two artist-writers. Ngarta's story is given in the third person, as told to her interlocutors (and possibly recorded on cassette) in the late 1980s and first published in 1991. Jukuna's story is told in the first person and published her in English translation as well as in her mother tongue, Walmajarri. She wrote it down in Walmajarri in the late 1990s. Here is the beginning of her story; I copy it here because I just find it so extraordinary to be holding in my hands a bilingual book in both English and Walmajarri.
"Kurlampal marna ngunangani jarlu yapa jilijinga. Ngajukura ngarpu parla Wirtuka ngurrara. Jularni pila nganpayijarrarlu yini Kirikarrajarti nyanayirlarni. Kurriny nganpayijarra pila pirriyani jarlu ngarrangkarni. Nyanyala pilanya paja wirnkuma. Pajanani palunyanu kujangkurrajarra manawarntirla. 'Kkir! Kkir!'"
"When I was a child I lived in the sand dune country of the Great Sandy Desert to the south of Fitzroy Crossing. My father's birthplace is near the waterhole called Wirtuka. My father got his name, Kirikarrajarti, right there. It's a name that came from the ngarrangkarni (creation time or Dreamtime). In the ngarrangkarni, two men came to Wirtuka and found the place overrun by possums. They were all fighting and biting each other, some up in the trees and others down in holes in the ground. As they fought they were hissing, 'Kkir! Kkir!'"
Life in the desert revolved around (unsurprisingly) the waterholes. Waterholes are either jila (permanent) or jumu (temporary, e.g. during the Wet season). Important waterholes are inhabited by a water serpent spirit. Each person and family comes from a waterhole, and each family group walks among a network of waterholes. If a waterhole has been left untended for a while, it silts up and needs to be re-dug. People will leave tools and food for the next visitors to come after them. (This I find so moving.) The story of young Ngarta running away from some murderous men and living on her own for around a year shows how ingrained in her upbringing was the knowledge of the location of waterholes. Not once did she get lost. She always knew where to find water. The worst that happened was that once she got to a waterhole and it had dried up, and she needed to double back, going thirsty for one night.
Since my youth in Australia, I had heard stories of the supposed cruelty of traditional Aboriginal people in leaving behind their old people to die in the desert. Ngarta especially describes in detail how at least two women were left behind in this way, but it is not at all cruel. The first woman was a young relative whose little son had died of a sickness. The woman struck her head with rocks in her grief and asked to be left behind. Her family refused and took her with them. But she kept pleading with them and finally she was left behind, with a little water. Young Ngarta is distraught and starts to cry and ask, "Why did you leave her?" But her mother told her that it was as the younger woman had wished, "and there was nothing to be done." At the next camping place, they told the others. "Everyone was crying." What strikes me is the respect for the young woman's wishes. It makes me think about today's debates around the right to determine one's own death (in UK, there is the Dignity in Dying and the My Death, My Decision campaign). What also strikes me is the sorrow and grief felt by people when children die and when another family member dies. It makes me realise how callous were the racist allegations that I heard in my youth as if indigenous people felt no love and sorrow.
At another point, an older relative asks to die, and with great sorrow her family members leave her with a little water. My father died last month, and I have been thinking a lot about when is the right time to die. I realise that when one dies peacefully, in old age, there is a sense of it being the right time, of the soul being ready and even willing to let go. My realisation sheds another light on this old Aborginal woman asking for death; life has become a burden and death is there to welcome her. All of these accounts are very moving to me.
Also interesting is the way in which several people in the two sisters' stories are able to identify individuals by their footprints. And when Ngarta escapes the two murderous men, she takes care to tread on clumps of grass so as not to leave footprints behind. People also kept in touch with each other by lighting fires and the smoke would let others know where they were and that all was OK.
I had a glimpse into a life lived so far removed from my present-day life, so far away from the Industrial Revolution and capitalism and consumer commerce and modern telecommunications and also far removed from cities, temperate climate zones, agriculture and a settler lifestyle. It made me think: what are we humans?
Thank you to the Reading Women Challenge for the prompt "Memoir by an indigenous woman". Researching the prompt made me discover this wonderful, uplifting and brain-changing book.
July 11, 2017
Incredible life story of two Walmajarri Sisters set in one of the many Australian Deserts. This may also be one of the first autobiographies written in an Indigenous Language.
March 28, 2025
We have all heard of the Pintuppi Nine, walking in off the land in the 1990s. The Two Sisters, Ngarta and Jukuna were also born on Walmajarri Tribal lands, and only walked in to civilisation as adults, from the Great Sandy Desert.
Ngarta came in to town and saw her first white man in her twenties, when her husband brought her to live with him on a cattle station.
Jukuna stayed in her desert home country until she was older, always remembering that Ngarta had promised to come back for her. Jukuna's story was particularly telling, as she recalls all the able bodied men leaving the communities, which shrunk to small bands of women, elders and children.
These new groups moved over their own, and then their traditional neighbours' lands, as criminal young men returned to rape and harass the defenceless women of the camps. With the adult men leaving, Tribal Law collapsed, and the tribal people were left at the mercy of both Indigenous and white criminals.
A powerful story, from two sisters who lived through both the Aboriginal culture, and the colonial European culture. Thank you, Aunties, for sharing your stories.
Ngarta came in to town and saw her first white man in her twenties, when her husband brought her to live with him on a cattle station.
Jukuna stayed in her desert home country until she was older, always remembering that Ngarta had promised to come back for her. Jukuna's story was particularly telling, as she recalls all the able bodied men leaving the communities, which shrunk to small bands of women, elders and children.
These new groups moved over their own, and then their traditional neighbours' lands, as criminal young men returned to rape and harass the defenceless women of the camps. With the adult men leaving, Tribal Law collapsed, and the tribal people were left at the mercy of both Indigenous and white criminals.
A powerful story, from two sisters who lived through both the Aboriginal culture, and the colonial European culture. Thank you, Aunties, for sharing your stories.
August 30, 2021
The story of two sisters, living in the desert country of the Walmajarri people. Both tales tell of their beginnings, their family structures and connection to other groups. The spirituality and living on the land.
Told in several parts - first Ngata's story, as told to Eirlys, and edited for English publication, as explained in the final pages. Then Jukana's story, written in Walmajarri herself, and translated into English by Eirlys. The original Walmajarri language is the third part of this volume.
An incredibly important work, to record language, but also the desert way of the life, mostly before any encounters with the white people. The knowledge, the connection to land and the gifts it gives (the natural water sources, the animals and plants). Also the cultural lines, the familial paths.
Knowing and language, and stories that may be lost, if not recorded and remembered.
Told in several parts - first Ngata's story, as told to Eirlys, and edited for English publication, as explained in the final pages. Then Jukana's story, written in Walmajarri herself, and translated into English by Eirlys. The original Walmajarri language is the third part of this volume.
An incredibly important work, to record language, but also the desert way of the life, mostly before any encounters with the white people. The knowledge, the connection to land and the gifts it gives (the natural water sources, the animals and plants). Also the cultural lines, the familial paths.
Knowing and language, and stories that may be lost, if not recorded and remembered.
January 24, 2025
this book is the account of two First nations women, some of the last living on country in northern WA, and their lives before and after moving onto cattle stations in the 60's. reading about such a unique way of life and way of being, and knowing it was so recent, showed me how little i know about the land i live on and it's history. i also found it really interesting learning about the different way of understanding chronology. i found it hard to gage the ages of the sisters in their narratives before learning that in their culture 'aging' is marked by the types of animals you are allowed to kill, rather than in a western way of marking birthdays. a very important and unique story.
December 24, 2019
Two moving accounts, both of which derive much of their power from their simplicity, of desert Walmajarri life and the move from the sandhills to what is now Fitzroy Crossing. There is a lot of material packed into this short, bilingual publication. Ngarta's tale is a tense, often exciting story of survival and resourcefulness. Jukuna's is replete with detail about changing lives and environments. Highly recommended.
July 11, 2020
I really enjoyed reading this book. Being white I found the complex family system difficult to follow but once I decided to stop trying to read the book as a white person and just read it as it was, I found it so much easier.
The two Walmajarri authors are nothing less than impressive as are their stories.
The two Walmajarri authors are nothing less than impressive as are their stories.
January 14, 2021
This was a really interesting read. An anthropological account of life as an indigenous woman in Australia from two perspectives. If you want to read and learn more about Australia's First Nations People, this is a great place to start.
June 2, 2021
Fascinating short story about two Walmatjarri sisters who lived their childhoods in the Great Sandy desert traditionally before coming into contact with white invaders as teens.
June 30, 2023
Australian Desert Dwellers
An educational, heartwarming true tale of aboriginal living in the desert during the mid to late 20th century. Enjoyable read!
An educational, heartwarming true tale of aboriginal living in the desert during the mid to late 20th century. Enjoyable read!
February 20, 2024
Loved this. Another great insite to Aboriginal culture and history ❤️
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August 19, 2020An invaluable insight into some of the last people to come from the deserts into white Australia. This book came to me when I was housekeeping in the Kimberley, if I hadn't of found it when cleaning that room I would never heard of it despite it being something more of us should read/learn/educate ourselves on. It is not about literary brilliance, it is about important stories. It won't take long, so stretch that imagination...
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews