Ngarta and Jukuna lived in the Great Sandy Desert. They traversed country according to the seasons, just as the Walmajarri people had done for thousands of years. But it was a time of change. Desert people who had lived with little concern for European settlement were now moving onto cattle stations. Those left behind were vulnerable and faced unimaginable challenges.

Jukuna’s rich account may be the first autobiography written in an Aboriginal language. Presented in English and Walmajarri, her determination to see her language written has made her one of our most valued authors.

JUKUNA MONA CHUGUNA was a Walmajarri woman from the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia. She left the desert with her husband in the 1950s to live and work on cattle and sheep stations in the Kimberley’s Fitzroy Valley. In middle age, Jukuna took up painting and became a well-regarded artist, holding exhibitions of her work around Australia and overseas. She was a natural teacher and great storyteller.