Yonka & Maart

John Sara

$6,600.00

A Noongar legend about the Yonga (Kangaroo) and the Maant (Moon). Noongars are the Aboriginal People who have lived in south west Western Australia for thousands of years, their area is south of Geraldton on the west coast, east to Merredin in the wheatbelt and past Esperance on the south coast. There are fourteen clan/language groups within the Noongar Nation.

A very, very long time ago Maant was watching a big group of yongas, they were all playing and jumping, maant noticed that there was one yonga that was bigger and stronger than the other yongas, he could jump the highest and hop the fastest. The big yonka was such a show off and bragger the other yonkas decided they would not camp or feed with the big yonga anymore. The yongas made a plan, they would go to the creek as soon as it got dark and swim down the creek staying on the same side, so when the big yonga saw their tracks he would think they had crossed the river. Their plan worked, the big yonga after searching for them for most of the night couldn’t find them so he went back to the camp all alone.

As time passed the big yonga became lonely so he made friends with the maant. Soon the big yonga began boasting to the maant, but maant knew he was lying because he could look down and see everything. Maant got so annoyed with the big yonga’s lies he challenged him to a race to see who could hop the fastest and who could jump the highest. Yonga soon realised maant would always win because he was in the sky and would always be in front.

After the challenge maant asked yonga what would happen to him when he died. Yonga told maant his bones would go white and crack in the sun (yhi). Maant laughed and said he would never die, the big yonga said that was silly talk as everything must die. So from then on the maant dies for a short time, it lives and gets full, then gets thin and dies, then lives and dies again, because maant boasted he could do an impossible thing as nothing lives forever.

Painting and story by John Sara