Sky Country: The Seven Sisters

Overview

In Indigenous Australia, the land, skies, animals, plants and people were created by Ancestors in the sacred time of the Dreaming or tjukurpa. These Ancestors made epic journeys, traced by Songlines, across lands, and the sacred sites and places they visited carry spiritual, ecological, economic, moral and cultural knowledge that First Nations Peoples live by, passed through generations by ceremony, song and stories. The Dreaming and Songlines not only relate to events past, but are ongoing, interconnecting present and future.

The dramatic narrative of the Seven Sisters tells one of the most significant Songlines. It can be tracked across the continent from the north of Western Australia, all the way to the east coast, across the Indigenous lands. This stamp issue depicts the story and perspectives of women from three lands: Martu Country in the Great Sandy Desert (May Chapman), Ngaanyatjarra Lands in the Great Victoria Desert (Angilyiya Mitchell) and the Anungu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the north-west of South Australia (Nyunmiti Burton).

There is some variation in this complex story, but all tell of Seven Sisters who flee a lustful, shape-shifting man, Yurla/Wati Nyiru, flying into the sky. The Seven Sisters (Pleiades) can be seen chased every night across the constellation sky by Wati Nyiru (Orion).

The Seven Sisters is the subject of a major exhibition, Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters at the National Museum of Australia, currently touring internationally.

Technical specifications