Alpar Seed Dreaming

Alpar Seed Dreaming tells the story of a small desert plant that has fed and healed Aboriginal people in Central Australia for generations. It is one of the many bush tucker Dreamings held by the women of the Utopia homelands, northeast of Alice Springs, who continue to paint the story today. Dive deep into the meaning of Alpar Seed Dreaming, the traditional story behind it, and the artists who carry it forward.

What Are Dreamtime Stories?

Dreamtime, or Dreaming stories are traditional Aboriginal narratives explaining how the land, its plants, animals and people came into being, and setting out the Law that flows from that creation. Alpar Seed Dreaming is a good example of how practical, everyday knowledge, in this case, what to eat, when to gather it and how to use it as medicine, is carried inside a story rather than written down. Every Aboriginal language group has its own word for this concept and its own body of Dreaming stories, each belonging to particular families and Country, and each still practised, painted and passed down today.

What Is Alpar Seed Dreaming?

Alpar is the name given, in the languages of the Utopia homelands, to a small desert plant also known as the rat-tail, goosefoot or green crumbleweed, and known to science as Dysphania kalpari. It is a low, sticky herb with a strong citrus-like scent, growing especially well in Mulga tree country across the Utopia region. Its small black seeds and scented leaves have long been gathered as a source of food and bush medicine, and Alpar Seed Dreaming is the story that carries this knowledge, along with the women's ceremonies connected to it, forward through generations of artists.

The Alpar Seed Dreaming Story

Alpar produces small clustered flowers on long spikes resembling a rat's tail, followed by tiny, shiny black seeds. Because the plant is sticky, its seeds don't shed as soon as they ripen; they're collected later in the season, once the plant itself has dried out, at a time when most other bush seeds are already gone. This made Alpar an especially valuable food source, filling a gap late in the season when little else was available.

In the past, women would collect the seeds, sometimes soaking them in water until swollen or cooking them in hot coals, then grinding them into a powder to make damper, an important source of protein before store-bought flour became widely available. While this practice is less common today, the knowledge continues to be taught to younger women, and ceremonies connected to Alpar are still performed to help ensure its ongoing productivity.

Artists Who Paint Alpar Seed Dreaming

Alpar Seed Dreaming is painted by a number of senior women artists from the Utopia homelands, who inherited the story, along with other important women's Dreamings, through their family lines; several trace this knowledge back to their aunt, the celebrated artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye.

• Doreen Nakamarra Dickson, June Bird Ngale and Rosemary Bird Petyarre, artists from Utopia, paint Alpar Seed Dreaming using clustered dots that represent the seeds at their different stages of growth, from green through to full maturity.
• Amy Dixon Kemarre, from Ilkawerne, paints the story as it was practised by the women of her own Country: collecting, soaking or cooking the seeds, then grinding them for damper. In her paintings, dot work represents the dry seeds of Alpar, ready to be gathered.
• Karen Bird Ngale paints Alpar alongside other Dreamings from her father's Country, including Ahakey (Bush Plum) and Tyankern (Mulga Seed), often incorporating Awelye, the ceremonial body paint designs used by women during Alpar-related ceremonies.

Traditional Food and Medicine Uses of Alpar

Beyond its role as a bush food, Alpar has long been valued as a bush medicine. Both the leaves and seeds carry medicinal properties: they can be soaked in water and used as a wash, mixed with animal fat to make an ointment, or boiled so the resulting liquid can be used as an antiseptic. This dual role, as both food and medicine, is part of why Alpar Seed Dreaming remains such an important story for the women who hold it, connecting practical survival knowledge with ceremony and Country.

Aboriginal Dreaming Symbols

Artists painting Alpar Seed Dreaming, like most Western Desert Dreamings, use a shared visual language built up over generations. Dots are used to represent seeds at different stages of growth; concentric circles often mark significant sites, such as a gathering place or waterhole; and connecting lines can trace a journey or a path travelled by ancestors. These symbols aren't decorative alone: they encode real information about Country, food sources and ceremony, with the fuller layers of meaning often known only to those with the cultural authority to interpret them.

Explore More Dreaming Stories

Alpar Seed Dreaming is one of many bush tucker and Country-based Dreamings held across Aboriginal Australia. A few related stories worth exploring:

• Water Dreaming (Ngapa Jukurrpa): The Warlpiri story of ancestral rainmakers and the storms that filled the desert's waterholes.
• Waterhole Dreaming: Stories of permanent water sources and the ancestors connected to them.
• Sandhill Dreaming: Where desert landscapes, ancestral stories, and traditional knowledge come together.
• Bush Plum Dreaming: A Central Desert story celebrating the bush plum as a vital food source, closely related to Alpar in both region and theme.
• Lightning Dreaming: A story often painted alongside Water Dreaming, reflecting how closely lightning and rain are connected in desert Country.
• Kangaroo Dreaming: One of the widely held animal Dreamings of Central Australia.
• Bush Yam Dreaming: Another important women's food Dreaming, telling of the yam as a staple bush food.
• Barramundi Dreaming (Daiwul Ngarranggarni): A Gija women's story from the East Kimberley, telling of a giant barramundi whose scattered scales became the region's diamonds.
• Tingari Dreaming: The song cycles of the Tingari, ancestral travelling parties said to have brought law and culture to the people of the Western Desert as they journeyed across the country.
• Goanna Dreaming: One of the significant animal Dreamings of Central Australia, explaining the origins and behaviour of this important totem and food source.
• Seven Sisters Dreaming: One of the most widely shared songlines in Australia, following seven ancestral sisters linked to the Pleiades star cluster.

Shop the Collection

Every artwork in this collection is created by Aboriginal artists with the cultural authority to paint these stories, supporting artists and their communities directly. When you buy through Mandel Aboriginal Art Gallery, you're supporting the continuation of these stories for future generations, backed by clear provenance and a direct connection to Country.

Contact Mandel Aboriginal Art Gallery and explore our collection of Dreamtime Stories!

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Alpar mean?

Alpar is the name for the rat-tail, goosefoot or green crumbleweed plant in the languages of the Utopia region: a small, sticky, citrus-scented herb whose black seeds were traditionally ground into flour for damper.

What is the Alpar Seed Dreamtime story?

The story tells of the women who traditionally collected Alpar seeds late in the season, soaking or cooking them before grinding them into flour for damper, knowledge and ceremony still passed down to younger generations today.

What are Dreamtime stories about?

Dreamtime, or Dreaming, stories explain how the land, plants, animals and people came into being, and set out the Law that flows from that creation. They're held by specific families and language groups and remain a living tradition, not just a historical record.

What are some other well-known Dreaming stories?

Other widely known Dreamings include

• Water Dreaming
• Bush Plum Dreaming
• Seven Sisters Dreaming
• Barramundi Dreaming
• Tingari Dreaming

Each dreaming is tied to a specific Country, community and set of custodians.