What is Budgerigar Dreaming?
Budgerigar Dreaming, known in Warlpiri as Ngatijirri Jukurrpa, is a Dreaming story from Warlpiri country in the Tanami Desert, north-west of Alice Springs.
The Story
The budgerigar (ngatijirri in Warlpiri) is a small parrot that moves in large flocks across the arid interior of Australia. In the desert, budgerigars gathering near a waterhole are a well-known sign that water is close by.
In the Dreaming, ancestral budgerigars travelled between sites across Warlpiri country, stopping to sing, dance and roost along the way. Published versions of the story name places to the south, east and west of Yuendumu, and different families hold the story for different sites along the route. The right to paint it is inherited, passing through the families who hold responsibility for that country.
What the Paintings Show
Budgerigar Dreaming paintings are usually composed as if seen from above, like a map of country. Ceremony and resting sites are often painted as concentric circles, and small cross-like shapes represent the birds' footprints on the ground. Many artists also paint the surrounding landscape: sand dunes, waterholes, bush foods and flowers.
Gwenda and Julieanne Turner Nungurrayi
Sisters Gwenda Turner Nungurrayi and Julieanne Turner Nungurrayi are Warlpiri painters from Yuelamu (Mt Allan), north-west of Alice Springs. Both paint Budgerigar Dreaming and Sand Dunes, stories passed directly to them by their mother, Maureen Nampijinpa Hudson.
The sisters paint the same story in different ways. Julieanne's eye tends to move to the landscape around the birds, including the bush tucker and the flowers. Gwenda is drawn to the bird itself: the budgerigar in motion and the tracks it leaves as it forages. Gwenda applies her paint with bottles rather than a stick, a technique she developed herself. Read more in our interview with Gwenda Turner Nungurrayi.
To learn more about Dreaming stories, read our guide to the Dreaming.
Browse Budgerigar Dreaming paintings in our Gwenda Turner Nungurrayi and Julieanne Turner Nungurrayi collections.
Art by Farquhar is a member of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia.