Jukuna Mona Chuguna
Born about 1933, died 2011
Walmajarri, Juwaliny language groups, Nakarra skin group
Fitzroy Crossing
Mangkaja Arts
Jukuna was born at Kurntumangujarti. She fell in love with Kurrapa Peter Skipper as a young girl and left the desert with him, travelling north to the station country. In the 1960’s, Jukuna and Kurrapa moved to Fitzroy Crossing where they began attending adult education classes in the 1980’s. Jukuna wrote the story of her life in the desert in Walmajarri for the book Two Sisters.
Tapu Country
2008, by Mona Chuguna
acrylic on canvas, 72×102 cm
Mangkaja Artists
National Museum of Australia
This is a jila [spring] in Tapu Country. There’s a true story to this painting about people who got burnt by a ball of fire that came down out of the sky.
We lived in my Country before there were any kartiya [white people]. Kartiya can’t live in my Country. They can’t find water and food. It’s the same when I go to town. I get lost!
My feeling for my Country comes from the stories. I paint my mother’s Country and father’s. It’s sad too because my father is buried there. I think about my Country all of the time. I like to paint the desert. It makes me think about my parents.
