Warlpiri people heartily dislike the bitter cold of midwinter nights when the temperatures can drop to freezing, and the daytime temperatures are kept cool by the winds from the south-east that blow into Central Australia, bringing cold air from the aptly named Snowy Mountains. In 1972, I witnessed a publicly held winter solstice ceremony at Yuendumu, the explicitly articulated purpose of which was to shorten the night and hasten the warmth that comes with daylight.1 I imagined that such a ceremony would be a regular event – but, to my surprise, I learned that it had last been held probably between 1947 and 19492 and a performance before that had been held when many Warlpiri were living at Mount Doreen Station, immediately to the west, probably in the late 1930s. Nor has the ceremony been held again since 1972.3 Thus, despite the obvious avowed purpose, the ceremony had been held only three times in roughly 70 years, suggesting there were additional reasons for holding it. These emerged gradually.

The ceremony was held over 12 days, from 4 to 15 July 1972. Shortly after it finished, an Aboriginal friend of mine, Sammy Japangardi, who had worked closely with linguist Ken Hale but who had not been at much of the ceremony, came across to where I was living in the south-east of Yuendumu and said he wanted to record a letter for his friend Ken Hale (Japanangka) about the ceremony. This is what he said, as translated by Hale:4

​Pattern of daily activity

The general pattern of activity on each of those days was for men and women to gather, in two separate spaces, 50 or so metres apart, during the course of the afternoon (see Figure 3.1). By most late afternoons, between 20 and 50 men had come to the ground at some stage, with most staying. The numbers of women were similar but sometimes higher. Up to 12 men of the kirda’s (owner’s) patrimoiety would be decorated with black on their bodies outlined in white plant down (mardaguru) and with wood shavings (rilyi)5 in their headbands at first and in later days kukulypa (shavings still attached to the stick). In the case of the men, this would take place 30 metres or so to the south-east of the main ground (see Figure 3.2). Several oblong objects 68 centimetres long and 25 centimetres wide were made that represented uncircumcised boys, and some small oval objects 25–30 centimetres in diameter, representing stars. Like the two shields used, all the objects were painted in black, outlined in white (see Figure 3.3).

The women painted up each day with a range of yawulyu designs over the 12 days for the important places of Janyingki, Minamina and Kunajarrayi, as well as for the route of the initiated men or Munga (night or darkness) jukurrpa. As with the men, some of the kurdungurlu were also painted up, the women often sitting in two separate kirda patricouple groups, the Napapangka-Napangardi group being decorated with Minamina or Janyinki designs. These two places relate to the travels of an ancestral group of women going east, taking young boys for circumcision in Anmatyerr Country, which contrasts with the route of the initiated men taking boys to the west. At the conclusion of the singing, most of the women returned to their camp, and only a few older women stayed behind.

In the initial days, the oblong objects used by the men were mainly held horizontally while dancing in a sideways hopping way, north–south and facing east.6 At the end of the dance, the objects were thrown over the heads of the men and caught by the women dancing behind (see Figure 3.4). Those not holding objects danced with their arms bent at the elbows, palms face up, moving their arms up and down towards their shoulders as if throwing something over them, a movement in common with the women dancers. This was explicitly to encourage the Milky Way to move across the sky more quickly so that daylight would arrive sooner. The dancing took place between 5.00 pm and 6.30 pm each evening for three to five minutes, as it started to get dark, to the accompaniment of singing. The managers danced briefly after the owners each night. Some few people, less than half a dozen, were sleeping on the ceremony ground.

On the first day, as the dancing began, there was a brief period of wailing in memory of Wally Japaljarri, the previous holder of the ceremony. That night, a small group of men may have sung all night or at least late into the night. On day three, the ground was modified with a long, raised mound of earth 19 metres long, 76 centimetres wide and 23 centimetres high, stretching north–south, on which the ashes and charcoal from the night fires were scattered each morning (see Figure 3.4). On day four, a trip was made to Jiri, a site associated with the travels of the ancestral initiated men, to collect natural stones that were manifestations of these ancestral men. These stones were incorporated into the headdresses of the senior male dancers in subsequent days.

On days 10–11, much time was spent by the kurdungurlu making an object 7.6 metres long and approximately 20 centimetres in diameter of grass and cloth wrapped around two sturdy saplings, which in turn were wrapped around with hairstring, near the preparation area, to the south-east.7 When completed, this would represent the Milky Way. On the evening of the penultimate day, there was talk of singing all night, but it was bitterly cold, and we all went to sleep after a couple of hours. In the middle of the night, there was a brief period of singing; however, due to the cold, we were soon asleep again. One of the oblong objects had a cross piece added to the top and was explicitly identified as a marlulu (male novice prior to circumcision).

Throughout the ceremony, a series of payments was made between the kirda and kurdungurlu. When food was involved, it was brought by the kirda for the kurdungurlu. Most of these payments happened very informally; I witnessed only one group of them on the penultimate day. A kirda brought a large billy can full of boiled eggs and chicken for the kurdungurlu. Earlier, the senior kurdungurlu had received about $40 from the kirda. He kept $12 and put the $28 down on the ground where a group of kurdungurlu was sitting; most took $2, but one senior kurdungurlu gave $10 to one man. The kurdungurlu then collected $26 for the kirda, four of whom got $5 apiece and one $6, with $10 coming from the senior kurdurngurlu, who had kept $12 of the original payment, and the rest contributed by other kurdungurlu, who had not shared in the distribution of the $40.

On the final afternoon at 4.00 pm, the kurdungurlu brought the kirda over to see the emblem of the Milky Way they had been working on for the last few days to the south of the dancing space. When the organiser of the ceremony, Paddy Sims, whose name was Wulpurrari, arrived at the ground, his face was painted red, and he wore a feather through his nose; but, by sunset, his face was black and white like the rest. At sunset, 11 kirda men carried the long object representing the Milky Way onto the ground and danced facing east, moving it up and down.8 The women danced behind them. They danced for three verses and then put the object down on the mound, thus concluding the ceremony (see Figure 3.5).

The ceremony raised a number of questions, but no answers were forthcoming at the time: Why was it held so sporadically? How did people remember what to do and keep the right songs in mind with such infrequent performances? What precipitated the holding of the ceremony in 1972? And what was the connection between night and initiated boys?

​Travels of initiated men jukurrpa

Upon inquiring as to whom the appropriate person was to ask about the travels of the initiated men connected to the Munga jukurrpa, I was directed to Karlijangka, Peter Japaljarri, a ceremonial leader in the north camp. I asked him about the travels of the men, and this is what he told me:9

This account brought together partial information given to me by numerous people about the travels of the initiated men over the days of the ceremony. I also spoke to Banjo Jungarrayi, a close Countryman of Paddy Sims, who would have been more actively involved in the ceremony had he not been unwell. He listed the places the men travelled to after Yanjilypiri as they went west: Jiri, Manjagururri, Yaljawariji/Paryilpilpa, Ngalpi (the Munga emblem was dropped here and unravelled), Kurijiydulpa, Kunjari (the head of the Munga ancestor fell down here and the travels ended).10

Mervyn Meggitt has an account of the travels of the initiated men (1966, 106–113); however, other than a few commonalities regarding where the travels started from, the account is quite different from that of Karlijangka – only the places of Kurlurrngalinypa and Yanjilypiri are in common. Indeed, the two accounts could hardly be more different. Further, while Meggitt’s account includes references to night and the Milky Way, Karlijangka’s account does not. This is because, in Karlijangka’s account, the circumcision ceremony is the Munga ceremony.

​The right to hold the ceremony

The 1947–1949 performance of the ceremony was associated with Wally Japaljarri, the senior owner of the ceremony, having speared a Jupurrurla man in the foot.11 The ceremony was held by way of compensation, although exactly how this acted as compensation is still unclear. It was also the occasion when Paddy Sims, the organiser of the ceremony I witnessed, learned about the ceremony, but he did not make it clear to me why he decided to put the ceremony on when he did. It was not until many years later, when I was talking with a man in his forties, that I got an answer, even if only obliquely: “Wulpurarri [Paddy Sims] held the ceremony because he could.”

Wally was the former senior owner of the ceremony and of the unrelated site of Kunajarrayi, as well as a formidable man with a reputation as a fighter, who had died around 1968.12 Paddy had acknowledged rights in Country 30 kilometres to the north-west of Kunajarrayi at Nyinyirripalangu and Panma, where his father was buried. He was of the same patricouple as Wally and as the ancestral travelling men with boys who had come from Kurlurrngalinypa in the northern Tanami to Yarrungkanyi (Mount Doreen) in almost all accounts I heard, except that from Karlijangka, and then on to Yanjilypiri before travelling west. Although Paddy was named after the Milky Way, he could not hold the ceremony while Wally was alive, as Wally was the senior man in the area and would not let him. Once Wally had passed away, he could hold the ceremony himself and appeared to be motivated to do so by two factors: he intended to have his son circumcised the following year and, by using this reason for putting on the ceremony, Paddy was able to demonstrate that he was now in control of the ceremony and the associated sites. Further, he was also keen to assert that he was the appropriate person to control the important nearby site of Kunajarrayi, as Wally had not left any heirs. This recognition was provided by the willingness of the senior men in the neighbouring estates at Yarripilangu to the south-east and Janyinki to the north to participate in the ceremony as their acceptance of the legitimacy of holding it was essential to its widespread acceptance.

Their support is shown by the list of men who were present on most days the ceremony was held and, particularly, on the final day when the key men of the kirda moiety joined together to carry the main Milky Way emblem onto the ceremonial ground (see Figure 3.5). These were the men in order, with their Country indicated in brackets:

Jimmy Jungarrayi (Yarripilangu)
Mick Jungarrayi (Yarripilangu)
Dinny Japaljarri (Kunajarrayi)
Paddy Sims Japaljarri (Panma)
George Japangardi (Country unknown)
Andy Japangardi (Janyinki)
Pompey Japanangka (Janyinki)
Paddy Lewis Japanangka (Pintupi from the west)
George Japangardi (Pintupi from the west)13
Arthur Japanangka (Pintupi from the west)
Jack Japanangka (Pikilyi)

It was essential to involve the two brothers Jimmy and Mick, as the senior men in the area to the south, which is why they were up the front. Both men were fathers-in-law to Paddy Sims’ wife’s siblings, one to a brother and the other to a sister. Next was Dinny Japaljarri, a recognised kirda for Kunajarrayi; although knowledgeable about ritual matters, he did not seem to have any ambition to be a leader in ceremonial affairs, as is indicated here in his endorsement of Paddy’s actions. I am unable to place George Japangardi, but Andy and Pompey were the two senior men from the Country to the north, with Andy married to Paddy’s mother’s brother’s daughter. The Pintupi men were close Countrymen of Paddy’s from further west. Jack Japanangka was the senior man for the important area around Pikilyi to the east, which is also close to both Kunajarrayi and Yanjilypiri. The senior manager was the father of Paddy’s wife, and three of the most active kurdungurlu were his mother’s brother’s sons.

​The songs

Twenty-two distinct songs were sung over the days of the ceremony. The singing was typical of such ceremonies. From time to time, while people were getting decorated and preparing ceremonial objects, they would sing one or two verses. Then, in the late afternoon, as the sun set, they would dance and sing a sequence of songs. I did not record the songs each day, so I am unclear how much variation there was, but my impression was that there was little if any. Table 3.1 lists exegeses for the songs recorded on the final day, based on commentary by Long Paddy Jakamarra with permission from Paddy Sims.

The actual sequence of songs sung is listed below.

1(1); 2(1): 3(3); 4(4); 5(5); 6(5); 7(1); 8(1); 9(9);10(9); 11(5); 12(5); 13(13); 14(1); 15(1); 16(13); 17(1); 18(1); 19(1); 20(9); 21(21); 22(22); 23(22); 24(22); 25(4); 26(5); 27(5); 28(4); 29(4); 30(30); 31(30); 32(9); 33(33); 34(33); 35(9); 36(9); 37(33); 38(33); 39(39); 40(39); 41(39); 42(42); 43(39); 44(33); 45(33); 46(33); 47(33); 48(48); 49(48); 50(48); 51(51); 52(51); 53(51); 55(55); 56(55); 57(55); 58(55); 59(55); 60(51); 61(51); 62(51); 63(51); 64(51); 65–72(1); 73–76(30); 77–82(28); 83–87(48); 88–91(51); 92(92); 93–96(92); 97(97); 98–106(97); 107–111(33); 112–117(1); 118(118); 119–121(118); 122(122); 124–127(48); 128–131(51); 132(132); 133–134(132); 135(135); 136–137(135); 138–140(92); 141(141); 142–143(141); 144–145(21); 146–147(22) (it’s not clear at the end of the tape that the ceremony is finished, but it is very close if not).

In the songs, there is no direct mention of night, only of the Milky Way, daylight, the setting sun and the Morning Star. The orientation is to the east, but the reference of the rest of the songs is to carrying the Milky Way on the shoulders going west. The reference to carrying the Milky Way on the shoulders is to the initiates who are being taken to a circumcision ceremony, alluded to as a Munga ceremony here. The other references in the songs are obscure, and no interpretation was offered by the men I spoke with. Most of the songs are shared with other rituals, including those held at the last Kankarlu ceremony under Karlijangka’s direction two or three years before this ceremony, and the Ngarrka or initiated men’s jukurrpa songs that can be part of the annual initiation ceremonies.

While discussing this ceremony with a colleague, David Nash, he asked whether the conjunction of the Morning Star with the winter solstice was a significant part of the ceremony. I do not know; however, on the basis of our conversation, I think it possible, given that this ceremony (and the previous one) appear to have a relationship with it. This is because the Morning Star would only be around at the time of the winter solstice every eight years, when the star reaches its maximum elongation – that is, rising with the greatest time gap before sunrise.17 In 1972, this was on 27 August. Going on this calculation, the previous performance of the ceremony, which I had estimated to be between 1947 and 1949, would have been in 1948, when the maximum elongation was on 3 September. Unfortunately, I have not been able to verify this link with any knowledgeable Warlpiri person at this stage. It makes a great deal of sense to me that the ceremony was not performed every year, as I originally assumed, and this is an object lesson in taking anything to do with Warlpiri ritual and religious life too literally.

​Performance, succession and the jural public

While the tendency today is for outsiders to see ceremonies such as this one as cultural performances that can be revived if the proper details exist in the ethnographic record, the word “performance” is misleading (e.g., see Michaels 1989). While the performative approach to the Munga ceremony would usually emphasise the enactment, staging and aesthetics of the dancing, singing, fabrication and decoration – which fits with the idea of revival and restaging of such ceremonies – this is to approach the ceremony from the point of view of an audience member. However, there is no audience at such a ceremony, even if some people are apparently just watching. The importance of the performance is that it is doing something, bringing something about and changing things; consequently, it is integral to the social relations between all the people present.

Sims had to secure agreement from a range of parties with different interests to hold the ceremony. A group of regional kin had to agree that he could legitimately take control of the ceremony despite his inability to hold it earlier. By holding the ceremony, he consolidated his claim as Wally’s heir and to a wide area of Country east of Panma, including the important site of Kunajarrayi. Although there must have been verbal discussion of this, only by holding the ceremony could this be publicly ratified. By holding the ceremony, he could demonstrate that he had not only the ritual knowledge but also, and more importantly, the support of the senior men in the area. This required their active physical participation in the ceremony for all to see. The important people in this event were the kirda, senior men in the same patrimoiety from neighbouring Countries. This was not a situation in which the kurdungurlu were custodians of knowledge in a regency context but one in which a kirda man could succeed to an adjacent Country and the high status associated with it, due to the important site it encompassed, only by getting other senior Countrymen to acknowledge his claim through their participation.

This gathering was a manifestation of what is now frequently referred to as the jural public, which must, in effect, ratify the succession. What is striking is how small the effective core of such a public can be. The average daily male presence at the ground was 36, and not one of those who attended more than four times came from the north or east sections of the Yuendumu community. The highest number of men at the ground was on the second day, when several people clearly came just to see what was happening. Of the total of 89 men who appeared over the 12 days, 35 came on only one or two days. A number of younger men appear to have come due to kinship obligations, three men because they were actual brothers-in-law to Paddy Sims, and at least four others because they were sons of key participants. One key Janyinki kirda and his son came three times between them when it might have been expected that the father, at least, would have been there most days. Thus, the participation was virtually entirely from the west camp, underlining that the ceremony was very much about social relations within that group of Countrymen, and the participating women being the wives, sisters and other close female kin of these men. The core people were the 10 people with Paddy Sims bringing the Milky Way emblem onto the ceremonial ground and dancing with it, but the presence of others as witnesses to the event was essential.

​Conclusion

The emphasis on munga (night) with initiation reflects a cultural association between darkness, the west and women, contrasting with light, the east and men. The ritual death of circumcision takes place at night; the next morning, the boy wakes up as a young man. The more common tradition associated with the initiation of Warlpiri boys is the songline associated with the travels of a party of women from Minamina, near the Western Australia–Northern Territory border, taking young boys east to be made into men (see Curran 2020). In this Munga ceremony, revived after more than 20 years of it not being held, the songs sung were associated with a separate but well-known songline, so it was not a case of the men having had to remember songs they had not sung for a long time. Regarding the Munga emblem and ground plan, the situation was different – as far as I am aware, they had not been created since the last time the ceremony was held.

From a historical perspective, the holding of this ceremony is impressive evidence of the radically different world Warlpiri people inhabited up to the early 1970s. The senior generations clearly believed the underlying title to the land was theirs to be managed in transactions between themselves. They were, of course, aware of the pastoralists’ rights, which were understood just as usage rights; however, as Coniston Johnny, the head Aboriginal stockman for Coniston station, put it so eloquently in 1972, the shade and the kangaroos belong to the Aboriginal people (see Bryson 2002, 46; Mortimer 2019, 162). It is sobering to realise that this ceremony was probably one of the last times that such a claim and ratification to Country took this traditional form at Yuendumu because, by 1979, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 had been passed, and the Warlpiri land claim had been successful. With those events, Warlpiri people, as had other Aboriginal people in the Territory, quickly understood that their claims to land must be recognised by their being on genealogies and lists held by the Central or Northern Land Council, expanding the politics of recognition beyond their own relatives into the intercultural field.

Acknowledgements

I thank Paddy Sims and the other senior people involved in the ceremony for allowing me to attend, take photographs and record the singing. My greatest debt is to Long Paddy Jakamarra for his year-long tutoring of me about the Warlpiri world. In respect to the Munga ceremony, he helped me transcribe the songs and provided a detailed exegesis. My thanks are also due to Karlijangka for his account of the travels of the initiated men from the north. I am grateful to Ken Hale for transcribing and translating the recording I made of Sammy Johnson’s account of the ceremony for him, to Rosalind Peterson for her notes on the women’s activities and to Georgia Curran for helpful advice. I have benefited enormously from David Nash’s enthusiastic interest in the topic of this chapter, knowledge of Warlpiri culture and our many invaluable conversations.

​References

Betz, David. 2006. Singing the Milky Way: A Journey into the Dreaming [film]. San Francisco: Song Lines Aboriginal Art.

Bryson, Ian. 2002. Bringing to Light: A History of Ethnographic Filmmaking at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.

Curran, Georgia. 2020. Sustaining Indigenous Songs: Contemporary Warlpiri Ceremonial Life in Central Australia. New York: Berghahn.

Laughren, Mary, Kenneth Hale, Jeannie Egan Nungarrayi, Marlurrku Paddy Patrick Jangala, Robert Hoogenraad, David Nash and Jane Simpson. 2022. Warlpiri Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.

Meggitt, Mervyn. 1962. Desert People. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.

Meggitt, Mervyn. 1966. Gadjari Among the Walbiri Aborigines of Central Australia (Oceania Monograph 14). Sydney: University of Sydney.

Michaels, Eric. 1989. For a Cultural Future: Francis Jupurrurla Makes TV at Yuendumu. Melbourne: Art and Text Publications.

Mortimer, Lorraine. 2019. Roger Sandall’s Films and Contemporary Anthropology: Explorations in the Aesthetic, the Existential and the Possible. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Munn, Nancy. 1973. Walbiri Iconography: Graphic Representation and Cultural Symbolism in a Central Australian Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Sims, Otto Jungarrayi. 2017. “Otto Jungarrayi Sims, Yanyilpirri Jukurrpa (Milky Way Dreaming)”. Uploaded 9 May 2017. Facebook video, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1192303170892978

​Tommy Jangala Watson (1948–)

Jangala was born at Mount Doreen Station, where he grew up walking around and eating bush foods. Jangala is kirda for the Ngapa “Rain” jukurrpa that travels through Puyurru. In the 1960s, he worked as a drover, then as a fruit picker and later for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, fixing fences and building houses. He lived with his family at his outstation on his Country in the 1980s. He has worked at the Yuendumu School for a long time teaching kids about Warlpiri culture. He is an important senior man in Yuendumu and has recently been involved in the repatriation of cultural objects from the South Australia Museum.

​Thomas Jangala Rice (c.1938–)

Thomas Jangala Rice was born in 1938 and grew up around the region of Mount Doreen Station to the west of present-day Yuendumu. He learned traditional hunting skills during this time and worked as a drover for the cattle station as a young man. He is kirda for the Country around Mikanji and the Ngapa jukurrpa, which is important to this region. As a young adult, he moved into Yuendumu with his two promised wives and has had an important role in his community ever since. Later in his life, he married Jeannie Nungarrayi Egan; together, they had an important role in the Warlpiri Youth Development Aboriginal Corporation’s Jaru-pirrjirdi bush trips. Jangala and Egan worked closely with Georgia Curran on the Warlpiri Songlines project between 2005 and 2008, shortly before Egan’s untimely death in 2009. Jangala has worked as a police aid and tracker with the Yuendumu Men’s Night Patrol and at the school, teaching traditional culture. He has had roles on the Yuendumu Council, Central Land Council and the Warlukurlangu Art Centre, through which he was central to the refurbishment of the Yuendumu Men’s Museum in 2010.

​Barbara Gibson Nakamarra (1938–c.1995)

Barbara Gibson Nakamarra, born in 1938 in the Tanami Desert, was settled at Yuendumu as a young girl and married with her sister Beryl to Tony Japaljarri Gibson. She worked at the clinic and was moved again to Lajamanu, where she became a leading authority on rituals. In the 1980s, the family spent much time at the Kurlurrngalinypa outstation, where they were asked to re-enact their hunting–gathering life for a Japanese Museum crew. She helped B. Glowczewski with many translations for the Dream Trackers CD-ROM (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2000) and started to paint in 1986, exhibiting in many galleries. One of her paintings was presented in a touring exhibition in France (Glowczewski, Yapa. Painters from Balgo and Lajamanu catalogue, edited by Baudoin Lebon, 1991) and the Lenz Culture Institute in Austria (Zeit: Mythos Phantom Realität, Springer, 2000). After her husband’s death, she went to live in Tennant Creek and Kununurra, where she continued to paint. She passed away in the mid-1990s.