Dreamtime Sisters by Colleen Wallace Nungari

The Dreamtime Sisters are good spirits dancing and looking after Colleen's country. Colleen says these sisters were once living people; her ancestors. There is a sacred site on Colleen's country where Dreamtime Sisters are carved on the rock walls, and on these walls this is what they look like. At this site, women perform ceremony for Arlatyeye (a pencil yam) and its seed. Above two of the Sisters in this painting, there is a decorated oval which represents the sacred site. Sisters are connected spiritually to the site as represented by the thick, curved white lines. It is night time when they have their ceremony and the cooler coloured dots represent this. The rest of the painting is filled with warm, bright coloured dots which represent the day time when women collect the yam. Circles throughout are symbolic of waterholes scattered over the country or where the women dig for arlatyeye. There are also arlatyeye leaves at the bottom of this painting. These leaves grow on vines that flourish above ground after rain.