Kumpaya Girgiba

Kumpaya Girgiba is a Manyjilyjarra woman born in the desert around 1940 in Jurrpa, a place to the east of the Canning Stock Route in the Martu native title determination. She first met non-Martu people on the stock route as a young girl, but her family decided to stay living in the traditional home and not to move into the mission or to pastoral stations. During her youth, Kumpaya met drovers and Martu stockmen and women who travelled up and down the stock route. She was introduced to bullock meat and other western foods – but the family remained very cautious of the drovers, and Kumpaya had very little personal interaction with them.

She travelled widely as members of her family came from places far to the east of the stock route. She married a man who came from the area of the Canning Stock Route further southwest in Martu country, and she moved to live in his country. She had two children in the desert. In 1963 Kumpaya, her family and other Martu met Len Beadell, a man who worked for the Department of Defence surveying roads across the desert close to Parnngurr rock hole. The group decided to leave the desert and go to Jigalong mission. She lived here with her husband and six children.

She and her husband worked on the pastoral stations he as a stockman, and Kumpaya doing domestic work. Kumpaya separated from her first husband, married Nyari Morgan and had four more children. She and Nyari worked on stations south of the Pilbara around Meekatharra and Wiluna. She eventually moved back to Punmu and then Parnngurr community.

Kumpaya is an Elder and the senior woman for the Jakulyukulyu Seven Sisters Dreaming. She is an expert on bush tucker and bush animals and has deep cultural knowledge. She has worked with KJ’s women’s ranger teams but has also been unceasing in her support of on-country trips and cultural camps. Kumpaya is an extraordinary artist, teacher and orator.

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