Perentie Man Dreaming

Size: 166 x 94cm

Orientation: Landscape

The Artist: Megan Umuka Lyons

The Story: This is the story about Wati Ngintaka Tjurkurpa (the Perentie lizard man creation story). Wati Ngintaka (Lizard man) heard the clapping sound of a beautiful grinding stone – a traditional tool used to grind mai (food). He wanted the stone for himself, so he went traveling looking for the stone. He came to a camp where people gave him seed cake, it was dry and he did not like it. Then one lady gave him delicious food and he knew that it had been made with seeds ground on the special grinding stone. When everyone went hunting the next day, Wati Ngintaka stayed at camp saying he had sore feet. Once everyone was gone, he wrapped the grinding stone up in his tail and left. Wati Ngintaka knew that the people would track him, so he called for a younger lizard to help him and dust away the tracks he made in the sand. Along his journey, he dug up tjanmatjas (bush onions), creating large boulders and created many other landforms which are now known as the Musgrave and Mann Ranges, being in the northwest corner of South Australia. The grinding stone, tracks and landforms are depicted in the painting