'Ngarta Jinny Bent spent her early years as a hunter and gatherer in the Great Sandy Desert. Following her arrival at Christmas Creek Station, Ngarta was put to work, but ran away to Cherrabun to join the man who had been chosen as her husband, and later raised a family. In middle age she learned to paint, and her work has been exhibited in Australia and overseas. In her later years Ngarta spent much of her time on her family's outstation on the edge of the desert, and made many journeys back to her country. She died in 2002.'
Ngarta Jinny Bent is the sister of Jukuna Mona Chuguna (q.v.).
Source: Fremantle Press website (Sighted: 24/11/2010)
Two Sisters : Ngarta and Jukuna
Fremantle
:
Fremantle Press
,
2004
Z1091243
2004
selected work
autobiography
biography
'For the first 150 years of European settlement in Australia the Walmajarri people of the Great Sandy Desert remained untouched by Western influence. The First World War came and went, and left no impression in the sandhills. The Second World War had faint reverberations, but no one in the desert had heard of Hitler or Churchill, nor even the Australian prime minister John Curtin. The Vietnam War, about which they had heard nothing, was still in progress when two sisters, Jukuna and Ngarta, finally emerged from the Great Sandy Desert. It would be later still before they first heard the word Australia and learned that they were not only Walmajarri, but also Australians. This is their extroadinary story.' (Source: Back cover, 2004 edition)
