This painting by Kitty Simon Napanangka depicts the Ngalyipi Jukurrpa—commonly known as the Bush Vine Dreaming. It refers to the ngalyipi plant (Tinospora smilacina), a native medicinal creeper found across Warlpiri Country. In Warlpiri culture, ngalyipi holds deep significance not only for its practical uses—as a bush medicine and ceremonial binding tool—but also for the ancestral stories it carries.
The Ngalyipi Dreaming is closely associated with women’s Law and ceremony. Traditionally, Warlpiri women would use the vine’s long, flexible stems as ceremonial bindings during initiation rites. The plant was also boiled and used as a healing wash, or chewed to relieve pain. In the Jukurrpa (Dreaming), ancestral women travelled across the land collecting ngalyipi, singing the songs and performing the rituals that embedded these stories into Country.
Kitty Simon painted this Dreaming with a deep sense of custodianship and cultural knowledge, inherited through her Warlpiri lineage. The intricate design reflects the winding, coiling nature of the vine as it spreads across the desert floor, binding not only trees but also people to land, Law and tradition. Her use of rhythmic dotting and sinuous lines maps the physical and spiritual path of this plant, and honours the women who have cared for it across generations.
This work is not simply a botanical depiction; it is a living document of Warlpiri women's strength, resilience and ceremonial authority. As with much of Kitty Simon's practice, Ngalyipi Jukurrpa affirms a deeply personal and ancestral connection to Country, and speaks to the enduring role of women as cultural knowledge-holders and storytellers in Warlpiri society.
