Pantjiti Tjiyangu
Pantjiti Tjiyangu MacKenzie is a senior Pitjantjatjara woman from the APY lands of northern South Australia. She spent much of her life in Ernabella, where she and her late husband Simon Mckenzie set up EVTV to make films recording a wide range of Anangu experiences. She documented the Land Rights movement on film. Her homeland is on Puka Station, NT. In 2009 Pantjiti moved to Kaltukatjara/Docker River to live with her new partner.
She is a respected senior law woman as well as an accomplished Ngangkari or traditional healer. A talented crafter of wood, she became the chair of Maruku Arts in 2015. She is also an experienced and exhibited painter, batik artist and grass sculptor with Tjanpi Desert Weavers.
Pantjiti was interviewed in 2017 by Neil Turner, at the Remote Indigenous Media Festival celebrating 25 years of Ngaanyatjarra Media - then in 2020 by Nicolas Lee, in her Care Home in Kaltukatjara/Docker River.
'Those pictures are truly beautiful…' & ‘We have taught them but they don’t know…’ (interview with full transcript & links)
'I was working a long time ago at EVTV.'
'Those pictures are truly beautiful.'
'I feel really good about it…'
'No more jobs for me…'
'…They totally don't know…'
Pantjiti was interviewed at EVTV in Ernabella, where she worked at the time.
As the committee said a long time ago, if we watch satellite TV continuously, we will forget Aboriginal things. Then they might not bother with Aboriginal TV programmes. But it’s good…they like Imparja and watch the news, and it’s good they’re seeing it.
I record women’s secret ceremonies in the bush. We bring back the footage and put it in a separate cupboard. We don’t make copies or edit that footage. It’s for private viewing in the studio only…we can’t make programmes with it.
