Goanna Love Story

Debra McDonald Nangala

Debra inherited the Goanna Love Story Dreaming story from her grandfather, and like him, paints stories that are significant to the country surrounding Karrkurutinyja (Lake Macdonald) and the community of Kintore, straddling the border of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The small concentric circle is the hole in the sandbank where the goanna lives. The large circle depicts the contours of the tali (sandhills) surrounding the goanna’s hole. The elongated designs on either side represent the tracks of the goanna as he searches the sandhills to find a wife. This design connects to the sacred Tingari Dreaming Cycle of the Western Desert, and relates to the Goanna Spirit beings of the Dreaming journeys as they travelled across vast distances of desert country. This story is connected to a sacred place to the west of the Sandy Blight Junction in Western Australia.