The traditional owners of this land have been busy preparing for the royal visit and at the base of Uluru on the walk the royal couple will take, I met senior Anangu lady Barbara Nipper who was in the Australian honours list in 2006, and her family.
Barbara will present Their Royal Highnesses with a series of paintings painted by four generations of her family including one by two-year-old, Lolita, especially for the royal couple.
The dot paintings are painted on paper made from mala poo – literally the dried droppings of the mala, or rufous-hare wallaby. This is an endangered species with just 200 breeding in a special program here at Uluru.
Using their faeces to make paper was the idea of a park ranger, hoping to create a product that could help finance the supplementary feed needed for the mala which costs the park $22,000 per year. Pictured is Bessie, Barbara’s daughter, holding the painting that she hopes may hang in baby George’s nursery. It depicts traditional life with two women and their digging sticks and collecting bowls, sitting by a water hole.
Barbara also has a necklace to give the Duchess and Prince William will be presented with a hand-made wooden shield – tjara – used traditionally to ward off the spears of enemies.
