Michelle depicts the landscape at Ernabella. She paints the ili tree, the desert fig, which is used by Anangu for bush food.
Associated excerpt, Macquarie University:
Desert Figs are of great importance to First Nations people of Central Australia, as a traditional source of food, for shelter, and for spirituality. Nutritionally, they are rich in calcium and potassium. Even the dry fruit fallen to the ground was ground with water to form hard balls that could be redried and stored for later use.
Historically, Indigenous people are known to have transplanted the figs and moved them to distant waterholes to provide future food resources. In part, the present distribution of the species is considered likely to have been due to human dispersal. Even in current times, cuttings and seedlings are transplanted by communities to provide food reserves.
The fig features in oral histories and is of such significance to the Pitjantjatjara people of Central Australia that historically, damaging a tree could be punishable by death.
