Aboriginal Australian Traditionslegend
The Seven Sisters Songline
Shared by Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, and Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara custodians through the National Museum of Australia: ancestral sisters flee across the deserts from a man who uses magic to pursue them, and rise into the sky as the Pleiades.
An editorial retelling
The story
Whose story this is
The Seven Sisters songlines belong to peoples of the Western and Central Deserts, among them the Martu, the Ngaanyatjarra, and the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY). The Martu call the sisters Minyipuru and the pursuer Yurla; Aṉangu call the sisters Kungkarangkalpa and the pursuer Wati Nyiru. In 2017 the custodians of these songlines worked with the National Museum of Australia on the exhibition Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, deciding what could be shared with the public through painting, weaving, song, dance, and film. This summary follows what they chose to share, and no more.
A songline, not a single tale
A songline follows the journey of ancestral beings across the land. The Seven Sisters' journey runs for hundreds of kilometres across what are now Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory, through the Countries of many peoples, each of whom holds and tells the part of the story that belongs to their Country. Rockholes, hills, and other features along the way mark where the sisters camped, rested, dug for water, or escaped. Knowing the songline means knowing the land.
The pursuit
The sisters travel together, and they are pursued by a man who desires them, or one of them. He is a sorcerer who uses magic and changes his shape to get close to them, becoming, in public tellings, things in the landscape that might tempt or deceive the sisters. The sisters escape him again and again, using their own powers and relying on one another. At some places he comes close; at others they elude him entirely. The shape of the land along the songline records these encounters.
Into the sky
At last the sisters rise into the sky, where they are the star cluster known in Western astronomy as the Pleiades. The man follows them, and is seen in stars of Orion, still in pursuit across the night sky.
What the story teaches
As the custodians presented it, the Seven Sisters story carries lessons about proper conduct, about the danger of uncontrolled desire, and above all about the strength of women who stand together. Aṉangu senior women artists, speaking to the museum in 2016, described themselves as big sisters to the young women, with the duty, as in the Seven Sisters story, to teach and protect their younger sisters (paraphrase). The story is also a way of holding knowledge of Country: where water is, how to travel, and how the land is connected.
Shared on the custodians' terms
The exhibition opened in Canberra in 2017 and toured internationally, to Paris, Berlin, Plymouth, Perth, and New Delhi. It was widely recognised as a model of how knowledge holders can share part of a songline publicly while keeping restricted knowledge protected. Some parts of the Seven Sisters story are women's knowledge or otherwise restricted, and this site does not include them.
Beyond the deserts
Stories connecting sisters with the Pleiades are found among other Aboriginal peoples as well, in their own forms and languages. They should not be assumed to be the same story as the desert songlines described here.
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Highlights
Ancestral sisters flee across the Western and Central Deserts from a shape-changing man, Yurla or Wati Nyiru, leaving their marks in the land; they rise into the sky as the Pleiades, and he follows as stars of Orion.
Why it matters
One of the great songlines of the Western and Central Deserts, shared in part by its custodians through the National Museum of Australia's internationally touring exhibition as a model of community-controlled cultural sharing.
Other versions
2 alternate accounts in the catalog.
Martu tellings
The sisters are the Minyipuru and the pursuer is Yurla.
Note: This summary follows a publicly shared telling. It is not the full story, and restricted parts are not included; the people named are its custodians.
Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara tellings
The sisters are the Kungkarangkalpa and the pursuer is Wati Nyiru.
Note: This summary follows a publicly shared telling. It is not the full story, and restricted parts are not included; the people named are its custodians.
Sources and further reading
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Works cited
Margo Neale (ed.), with Martu, Ngaanyatjarra, and APY custodians
Songlines: The Power and Promise (First Knowledges series)
Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly
Further reading
Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters
The exhibition catalogue, shaped by the custodians
Read online: Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters (opens in new tab)