Songlines on Screen: Tjawa Tjawa (ATOM Study Guide)

This ATOM study guide has been designed to assist you with classroom preparation in relation to the viewing of the short film Tjawa Tjawa. This film is one of eight films that have been made to record, celebrate and share precious historic and cultural information from Indigenous groups in remote western, northern and central Australia.

Tjawa Tjawa Synopsis:
The Tjawa Tjawa songline is a Ngarti traditional story told in Kukatja language (with English subtitles) about a group of women who came from Roebourne in the Pilbara and travelled all the way through to Kiwirrkura in the Great Sandy Desert, far to the south of Balgo, where they split up, some heading east and some north. The songline segment recorded for Tjawa Tjawa follows their travels north, in some cases underground, from Lake Mackay (Wirlkinkarra) through Tjawa Tjawa, Walkarli, and Makura to Manga Manga, from where they returned underground to their home country.

The women were searching for men to take as husbands. When they neared Lake Mackay they came across a group of Ngarti women and joined them in their camp, where they were given kangaroo meat brought by an old man. They ate some of the meat, including the hook of a spear still buried in the flesh. This made them feel very strange. They realised that this old man could not have speared the kangaroo himself and that there must be young men somewhere nearby. Then they looked up and saw a young man with his headband lit up by the last rays of the setting sun and they cried with joy. They shattered the hill and climbed over it to make love with the men and slept till morning. Two senior law men were angry that their ceremonial ground had been violated and spread a fire in which all the young men got burned and died, but the women brought themselves back to life again and continued travelling north through Ngarti country.

Curriculum Links:
This film provides opportunities for learning activities in Year 7–10 English and Media Arts.