Pitjantjatjara People - History

History

A 73,000 square kilometre tract of land was established in the north west of South Australia for the Pitjantjatjara in 1921 after they lost much land due to hostile encroachment by hunters and ranchers.

Extended droughts in the 1920s and between 1956 to 1965 in their homelands in the Great Victoria and Gibson Deserts led many Pitjantjatjara, and their traditionally more westerly relations, the Ngaanyatjarra, to move east towards the railway between Adelaide and Alice Springs in search of food and water, thus mixing with the most easterly of the three, the Yankunytjatjara. They refer to themselves as Anangu, which originally just meant people in general, but has now come to imply an Aboriginal person or, more specifically, a member of one of the groups that speaks a variety of the Western Desert Language.

In response to continuing outside pressures on the Anangu, the South Australian Government gave its support to a plan by the Presbyterian Church to set up the Ernabella Mission in the Musgrave Ranges as a safe haven. This mission, largely due to the actions of their advocate, Dr. Charles Duguid, was ahead of the times in that there was no systematic attempt to destroy Aboriginal culture, as was common on many other missions.

From 1950 onwards, many Anangu were forced to leave their homelands due to British nuclear tests at Maralinga. Some Anangu were subsequently contaminated by the nuclear fallout from the atomic tests, and many have died as a consequence. Their experience of issues of land rights and native title in South Australia has been unique. After four years of campaigning and negotiations with government and mining groups, the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act was passed on 19 March 1981, granting freehold title over 103,000 square kilometres of land in the northwestern corner of South Australia.

The Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act, 1984 (SA) granted freehold title of an area of 80,764 square kilometres to Maralinga Tjarutja. The subsequently named Mamungari Conservation Park) with 21,357.8 km² was transferred to the Maralinga Tjarutja in 2004.