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Ngaatjatjarra people

The ethnonym Ngaatjatjarra, in line with a general practice in their area, combines the interrogative pronoun used by each tribe for "who", "what". In their case this yields up a combination of ŋa:da and the possessive suffix -t(d)jara, is attached. The sense therefore is, "(people) using the form ŋa:da for the idea of 'who/what'".^[1]

Ngaatjatjarra is mutually intelligible with Ngaanyatjarra, and both are treated as dialects of the one language.^[2]

Norman Tindale^[a] assigned them traditional lands he estimated as covering roughly 78,000 square kilometres (30,000 sq mi). The centre of their traditional life was in the Warburton Ranges and in particular at a site, Warupuju Spring, where water was always available.^[3][b] Their eastern frontiers lay around Fort Welcome, the Blackstone Ranges, Murray Range and Mount Hinckley. In the southeast, their furthest boundary was at the Ero:tjo watering hole, south of Wangalina. To the northeast, they roamed as far as Kudjuntari in the Schwerin Mural Crescent Range and around Julia (Giles) in the Yurliya Range. Their northern range extended to Hopkins Lake and Carnegie Range and beyond the Christopher Lake. Their western limits were around Tekateka and Jalara and the Alfred Marie Ranges.^[4]

Tindale's map places the neighbouring tribes of the Ngaatjatjarra as, running clockwise, the Keiadjara and the Wenamba to their north, the Pitjantjatjara on their eastern frontier, the Nakako and Mandjindja to their south and the Ngaanyatjarra on their western borders.^[5] The AIATSIS map calls then Ngatatjara and absorbs the Keiadjara and the Wenamba in to the Martu and Pintupi respectively.^[6]

A native map of their water mythology explaining how the overarching rainbow, Tjurtiraŋo, produces the various water resources, was made for Tindale in the 1939s and is reproduced in his 1974 book.^[7]

The "Ngaanyatjara lands" are those administered by the Ngaanyatjarra Council (Aboriginal Corporation), which includes the communities of^[8] Irrunytju (Wingelinna),^[9] Kiwirrkurra,^[10] Mantamaru (Jameson),^[11] Papulankutja (Blackstone),^[12] Patjarr (Karilywara),^[13] Kanpa (Pira Kata),^[14] Tjirrkarli,^[15] Tjukurla,^[16][17] Warakurna,^[18] Wanarn,^[19] Warburton (Mirlirrtjarra).

The practised patrilocal residence, and their marriage arrangements were based on for class system.^[20] Father's father, father, son, son's son and their brothers inherited a totem (tjukur/tuma) which bore associations with specific topographical features of the landscape that evoked the movements of the creative being in their dreaming.^[20] They practised both circumcision and subincision, in two distinct phrases, on youths undergoing initiation into full manhood, employing biface pressure-flaked stone knives ('tjimbila), which they obtained through trade with neighbouring tribes to their north, who in turn ultimately received them from their production centre in northwestern Australia.^[21]

The Ngaatjatjarra harvested grass seeds (wakati) and worked them with rolling stones to obtain a paste for nutriment. They also gathered nicotiniana excelsior, a tobacco leaf which they dried over fire and which they chew after mixing them with ashes from burnt acacia and phyllodes.^[22]

The first white contact with the Ngaatjatjarra came relatively late. Tindale describes in detail one nuclear family of the tribe encountered in August 1935 during the Expedition of the Board for Anthropological Research of the University of Adelaide.^[23]

Source: Tindale 1974, p. 250

• tartu (seeds pods of the river red gum used to decorate a girl's hair)^[24]
• tjitjimurdilja (uncircumcised youth)^[20]
• wana (woman's digging stick)