Tjukurpa Time

Abstract

33-Before it was written it was told and sung; this ancient land resounded to the language of its first peoples. 33-Nganyinytja, a Pitjantjatjara woman of elder high degree, learned to read her people’s history written in the land. As she stated in 1988: We have no books, our history was not written by people with pen and paper. It is in the land, the footprints of our Creation Ancestors are on the rocks. The hills and creek beds they created as they dwelled in this land surround us. We learned from our grandmothers and grandfathers as they showed us these sacred sites, told us the stories, sang and danced with us the Tjukurpa (the Dreaming Law). We remember it all; in our minds, our bodies and feet as we dance the stories. We continually recreate the Tjukurpa. 38-The Pitjantjatjara language, for instance, does not have a word or phrase equivalent for the western concept of ‘in the beginning’.