Native cat and water Dreaming at Yinpirrkawarnu
1988

• Alan Winderoo Tjakamarra

Often likened to a small cat, the quoll is a carnivorous marsupial native to numerous regions in Australia. Until the 1970s, Anglocentric publications referred to quolls as the ‘native cat’, a paradoxical term that associates the marsupial with introduced pests and animals more familiar to Europeans. This language of settler-colonialism erases First Nations knowledges and cultural nuances – a destructive yet common story across the continent – and has been so pervasive that some First Nations artists, such as Alan Winderoo Tjakamarra, have adopted this Anglicised terminology for their narratives featuring a quoll. This painting is a water Dreaming from the artist’s father’s Country. It shows the route taken by the rain snake, bringer of the wet season, that runs into the paths of the tingarri (native cat) ancestors.