Two Sisters, a true Story by Ngarta Jinny Bent

Two Sisters is an authentic account of an ancient way of life as it was lived by sisters Ngarta and Jukuna in the Great Sandy Desert, and then it covers the period when this way of life was disrupted by the coming of Europeans into the north. It is hard to convey the sense of wonder with which I read it. I have read a few books by desert people, but I haven’t read one like this. To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.

Their existence was so remote and their lifestyle so ancient they had never set eyes on a white person before and knew nothing of the modern world. Everything they did was imbued with a deep sense of respect for their homelands. Jukuna’s story is also published in the original Walmajarri language in which she wrote it.īoth Ngarta and Jukuna were born in the Great Sandy Desert (located in the north-west of Western Australia and spanning more than 110,000 square miles) and lived a largely nomadic lifestyle, wandering from waterhole to waterhole, accompanied by their kin.Įach sister was raised by a different woman - Ngarta was raised by her grandmother Jukuna by her birth mother - so they have slightly different takes on things, but they both depict relatively simple lives focused on family and hunting/gathering. It includes a helpful glossary and pronunciation guide, and colour plates of the artwork the sisters produced as well as a selection of their photographs.

The sister’s memoirs are told separately - Ngarta’s is titled A Desert Tragedy, while Jukuna’s is My Life in the Desert - and there are short chapters, by Pat Lowe (who edited the stories) and Eirlys Richards (who translated them from the Walmajarri language), explaining how the book came into being and putting the sister’s lives into context. The book is comprised of several different parts. It’s also a fascinating and eye-opening portrait of the desert people’s way of life in the 1950s and early 60s and how the coming of the vast cattle stations changed everything. Two Sisters: Ngarta and Jukuna is a brilliantly evocative autobiography of two aboriginal sisters.

Two Sisters, a true Story by Ngarta Jinny Bent