Clip description
A family are looking for bush potato, a much-loved favourite. Women using tools to dig up the potato show us that it takes great effort to gather it – but, we are told, the expenditure of energy is worth it.
Curator’s notes
One of the most intriguing aspects of the Nganampa Anwernekenhe series is how the storytelling is allowed to unfold through the action of the people on screen. Here we are learning about gathering the bush potato, and the Elder women who are the instructors to the younger women and children show us how much effort it takes to harvest the potato. In Indigenous cultures, showing then doing transmits much of the cultural knowledge, and this clip is a very good example of this. This makes cultural knowledge a very physical experience gathering exercise, and the amount of time we are watching the women dig is true to how cultural knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.