Kalaya

Kalaya, the emu, is an ancestral being of Pintupi and neighbouring Western Desert country. The Kalaya Tjukurrpa, an Emu Dreaming running through the country west of Kintore, follows the great bird as it walks the landscape feeding and searching for water, its path and resting places fixed as named sites. As across much of Aboriginal Australia, the emu ancestor is also linked to the sky, its form traced in the dark dust lanes of the Milky Way rather than in stars. The Dreaming remains a subject of Pintupi and Luritja women's and men's painting.

Domains

• game animals
• water seeking

Powers

• wanders the country feeding and drinking

Epithets

• Kalaya — the EmuIkuntji Artists, Kalaya Tjukurrpa documentation (secondary)

Sources

• Kalaya, the emu, is an ancestral being of Pintupi and neighbouring Western Desert country whose Dreaming, the Kalaya Tjukurrpa west of Kintore, follows the emu walking the landscape as it feeds and drinks.: Ikuntji Artists Aboriginal Corporation, Kalaya Tjukurrpa (Emu Dreaming) catalogue (secondary)
• The emu is a widely shared totemic ancestor across the Western Desert, associated with the constellation seen in the dark lanes of the Milky Way.: R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia (1989) (secondary)