Better World Arts Lacquerware Decorative Heart - Artist Rama Sampson

Ramas painting illustrates the Mingkiri Tjukurpa the dreaming of the marsupial mice near Kuntjanu, Rama’s country in remote north-western South Australia. The painting shows the many burrows where the mingkiri live. The mingkiri are digging with their mulya (noses) to block their holes. When Rama talks about the Wanampi Tjukurpa (Rainbow Serpent Dreaming), he says that many stories are all together – tjungu. The Mingkiri people cry when Wanampi is speared by a left handed man, but his son was in the womb of Wanampi’s wife, so the rainbow serpent still lives today at the rockhole in Kuntjanu. The kuniya (python) and liru (snake) people are also all here, in this one big story.