Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland form the macro-region known as Eastern Australia, along with the Tasmanian Island, Jervis Bay Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory. The remaining mainland states of South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory are home to hundreds of Aboriginal clans, which will be the focus of this article. Some of them have lived in the Red Centre from time immemorial. This article covers only Australia’s major Aboriginal clans, which were selected either because of the location of their lands (the Larrakia), their contribution to the arts (the Aṉangu-Pitjantjatjara), or their large population (the Noongars). For a comprehensive study of the groups this article fails to cover, the reader can turn to the AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia.
(Aboriginal) South Australia
Whales are the totem of the Mirning people, the Traditional Custodians of the waters of the Great Australian Bight, the seabed of the Nullarbor Plain, and the limestone Bunda Cliffs. Since the Dreamtime, they have been “the natural custodians and protectors of land, sea, and nature,” as they state on their website.
The first Europeans they encountered were the Dutch in 1627, who after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, first sighted the Australian coast near what is now Cape Leeuwin. They then sailed east, along the coast of the Mirning people, mapped the region, and named it Landt van Pieter Nuyts. Their extremely accurate maps were later used by the French and the British.
Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, is a relatively young city that grew into the metropolis we know today only in the 1870s. It was established in 1836 on the so-called Adelaide Plains, west of the Mount Lofty Ranges, on an open grassy plain with patches of trees which the Kaurna (Coorna) people, the original custodians of the Adelaide Plains, call Tarntanya (“Red Kangaroo Place”).
The ancestral lands of the Kaurna, known among early colonists as the “Adelaide tribe,” stretch from the Mount Lofty Ranges to the coast of Gulf Saint Vincent, from Cape Jervis to Adelaide, and to Crystal Brook. In less than thirty years after first contact, the Kaurna were decimated. In 1874 a large group of them was arrested for vagrancy around Botanic Park, although that was the location of their campsite. Until the 1970s and 1980s, the Kaurna people were considered on the verge of extinction, beggars, and dwellers on their lands.
The Kaurna language “fell asleep” after the death of its last speaker in 1929, although some linguists point out that it had stopped being used consistently already in the 1860s. The 1990s saw an active revival of the Kaurna language and, to an extent, the Kaurna’s ancestral practices and culture.
The Nukunu, the “snake people,” are the Kaurna’s northern neighbors, as well as the southeasternmost tribe to practice subincision and circumcision to initiate young men into tribal status. They are also the most southeasterly tribe to honor a matrilineal moiety. According to anthropologist Norman Tindale, before colonization, the territory of the Nukunu people occupied around 2,200 square miles of land east of Spencer Gulf from present-day Port Augusta to the north of the mouth of the Broughton River. In 2019, 23 years after the Nukunu people lodged their claim, the Federal Court of South Australia recognized their non-exclusive native title rights and interests over Port Pirie.
In doing so, they were finally acknowledging the Nukunus’ ongoing and uninterrupted connection to their country. Their language has a 90% overlap with that of the Ngadjuri, who the Kaurna call “peppermint gum forest people.” The Ngadjuri lands cover some 30,000 square miles stretching from Freeling in the south (home to most filming locations used in the beloved Australian TV series McLeod’s Daughters) to the Flinders Ranges in the north. In the 1840s, copper mines were discovered in present-day Burra and Kapunda. What followed was an unprecedented influx of settlers who further contributed to the displacement of the Ngadjuri.
The Narungga are the Custodians of the Yorke Peninsula. Their ancestral territory, which they call Gurunda, runs north as far as Port Broughton and east as far as Port Wakefield. Before the coming of the Europeans, the Narungaa would often trade with the Nukunu, their neighbors to the north, as well as with the Kaurna people and the Peramangk. Today, Narungga and Nukunu communities are especially active in land management through fire (also known as fire-stick farming).
The lands of the Ngarrindjieri people encompass the Fleurieu Peninsula, the lower Murray River, and its two lakes, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, as well as the Coorong coastal lagoon, with its wetlands and hypersaline water bodies. The Ngarrindjieri group comprises several clans, but their language interestingly shares no common words with that of their neighboring Aboriginal groups.
The Kokatha (also Kokatha Mula) are the Traditional Custodians of one of the most waterless, driest, and harshest lands on the Australian continent. Their territory extends over some 140,000 km2 (54,000 m2) in northern South Australia from Lake Torrens in the east to the Gawler Ranges in the west and up to Port Augusta.
West of the Kokatha lands lies a vast region of red soil and spinifex expanses. In the mid-1950s, amid the Cold War, this area was chosen by the British to conduct nuclear weapons testing. The Custodians of these lands, the Maralinga Tjarutja, were forcibly displaced by the Australian authorities.
The Bungandidj (“the people of the reeds”) are the custodians of the dormant volcano known as Mount Gambier (recently renamed “Berrin/Mount Gambier”) and its lakes, an area that, according to archaeologists, has been inhabited for at least 30,000 years. The lands of the Bungandidj extend across South Australia and western Victoria, a testimony to the arbitrary designation of borders in contemporary Australia. Today, their lands are finally being renamed according to their Aboriginal names. Valley Lake is now known as Ketla Malpi which means “sacred talking tree,” while Blue Lake is Warwar, “the sound of many crows” or “crow country.”
Western Australia
The Aṉangu Ngaanyatjarra are the Traditional Custodians of the Goldfields-Esperance region, in the southeastern corner of Western Australia, a region as large as Turkey and the state of Victoria, mostly hot, dry, and subject to periods of prolonged drought. Their ancestral lands encompass sections of the Little Sandy and Gibson deserts, all of the Central Ranges, as well as the Great Victoria Desert in its southeastern section. They cover around 3% of mainland Australia, the equivalent of 250,000 km2.
The colonial history of the Ngaanyatjarra is relatively unique, as their first encounters with Europeans occurred only in 1933, with the establishment of the Warburton Mission. Today, the Ngaanyatjarra comprises eleven communities, and each community is autonomous as well as a member of the Ngaanyatjarra Council.
The Ngaanyatjarra people have been in the Goldfields-Esperance region for at least 10,000 years. Because of the remoteness of their lands, they are sometimes referred to as the “Hermit Kingdom.” In addition to the Pama-Nyungan Ngaanyatjarra language, some communities speak English and other regional Indigenous languages such as Noongar (in the west) and Pitjantjatjara (in the north).
The Ngaanyatjarra’s neighbors to the south are the Mirning, while to the north lie the lands of the Martu people. The group comprises five different clans and most of the Martu today live in some of the most remote communities of all such as Jigalong and Punmu, and the town of Wiluna. The Canning Stock Route and the (in)famous rabbit-proof fence were built on Martu (Mandjildjara) lands between 1901 and 1908. In 1931, two Martu sisters, Molly and Daisy Craig, were forcibly removed from their families in Jigalong and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement.
A few days later, they ran away along with their cousin, Gracie Fields. The three embarked on a 1,600 km walk back home to Jigalong on foot following the rabbit-proof fence. Their story was told by Doris Pilkington, Molly’s daughter in her book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996), adapted into a film in 2002.
Spiky mounds of spinifex grasses cover almost a fifth of the Australian continent, including the ancestral lands of the Aṉangu Pila Nguru, who are often referred to, unsurprisingly, as the Spinifex people. They are the custodians of a large area in the Great Victoria Desert, close to the border with South Australia, which extends to the north of the Nullarbor Plain. Their country is sometimes simply called Spinifex Country.
While some Aṉangu Pila Nguru people reside in Yalata, Kalgoorlie, and Oak Valley (South Australia), the largest Pila Nguru community lives in Tjuntjuntjara, in the southern part of the Great Victoria Desert. Tjuntjuntjara was established in 1988 in one of Australia’s most remote areas by a group of Aṉangu elders who had decided to return to their ancestors’ country. Most of them had grown up at Cundeelee Mission, where they had been relocated in the 1950s, before and after the British nuclear weapons testing.
The south-west ecoregion of Western Australia is called by its traditional Custodians Noongar boodja, the lands of the Noongar. The region is defined by 14 different dialectal groups and geographical areas.
It extends from north of Jurien Bay, facing the Indian Ocean, inland to the town of Moora (built on the lands of the Yued), and down to the southern coast as far east as Esperance (established on Wudjari and Ngadju lands). The city of Perth was founded in 1829 on the lands of the Whadjuk. Noongar author Kim Scott has described the coming of the Europeans in his 2011 novel That Deadman Dance. While in Perth and the Peel area, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders represent 5% of the population, in the Kimberley region around 40% of the population identifies as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. The Balanggarra people are the Custodians of north Kimberley, including the King George Falls (Oomari), Revely Island, Adolphus Island, and the Sir Graham Moore Islands.
Broome was established on the ancestral lands of the Yawuru, which also include the Roebuck Plains and Thangoo pastoral leases. The other major town in the region, Derby, flourished on an area traditionally belonging to the Mayala, who are also the Custodians of hundreds of islands, reefs, mangrove creeks, and seagrass meadows in the Buccaneer Archipelago. The Bardi Jawi are the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters on the Dampier Peninsula, while the Gascoyne region in the northwest of Australia and the Murchison region has been inhabited for centuries by the Watjarri. Today many of these groups are actively fighting for the recognition of Native Title over their ancestral lands.
The Northern Territory
Central Australia, which covers 40% of the Northern Territory and spans over 600,000 square kilometers (over 231,000 square miles), lacks clearly defined borders. Sometimes, it is simply known as the Outback or the Red Centre. It is home to some of the largest Aboriginal communities, including the Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, and Arrernte. Alice Springs, the major hub of this mostly desertic region, was built on the ancestral lands of the Arrernte. They call it Mparntwe (pronounced m’barn-doo-uh), which means “watering place.”
The Arrernte group includes three “mobs”: while the Central Arrernte are the Custodians of Alice Springs and the Todd River, which flows through the city, the ancestral lands of the Eastern Arrernte mob extend east of Alice Springs-Mparntwe, into the Simpson Desert and the lower Hale River. The lands of the third mob, Western Arrernte, extend west of Alice Springs to Mount Swan and the Hart Range, including part of the Tjoritja-MacDonnell Ranges, whose ridges run to the east and west of Alice Springs.
To the west, the lands of the Arrernte border those of the Luritja (known as Kukatja-Luritja or simply Kukatja). They are the Traditional Owners of an extensive territory that extends for some 27,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) into the Red Centre, with the Derwent River acting as a natural border between the two groups. Aboriginal painter Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri (1954-2011) was of Luritja and Pintupi origin.
The Luritja’s neighbors to the west are the Pitjantjatjara, who, along with the Yankunytjatjara, simply refer to themselves as Aṉangu (pronounced arn-ung-oo) people. Their lands stretch across the northwest of South Australia and into Western Australia, and, as it happens for virtually any Aboriginal group, the borders of their territory exist beyond contemporary state borders and the non-Indigenous concept of ownership. The Aṉangu-Pitjantjatjara are the Traditional Owners of Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (Mount Olga), and the land is imbued with their spiritual beliefs, laws, and Dreamtime stories, known as Tjukurpa.
North of the Arrernte and the Luritja lies the territory of one of the largest Aboriginal groups, the Warlpiri (or Yapa). Although many of them today live in Alice Springs, Katherine, and Tennant Creek (where also many people from the Warumungu and Kaytetye tribes reside) traditional Warlpiri territory lies in the Tanami Desert. It extends from east of the border with Western Australia, northwest of Alice Springs, and west of the Stuart Highway, which connects Darwin in the Northern Territory to Port Augusta in South Australia, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. The major Warlpiri communities include the Nyirrip, Willowra, Lajamanu (established in 1949 on the site of the former Hooker Creek station, which today hosts the Warlpiri Warnayaka Art Gallery), and Yuendumu (a thriving community of Aboriginal artists and painters).
Given the remoteness of their ancestral lands, the Warlpiri (and the Pintupi) were among the last Aboriginal people to encounter white Australians. Warlpiri Elders still remember what life looked and smelled like before the encroachment of Western values and the disappearance of many native species due to European-imported pests like feral cats and rabbits. Today, they are working with other Indigenous and non-Indigenous rangers to re-introduce native animals, such as the brush-tailed mulgaras, the black-footed rock wallabies, or the red-tailed phascogales.
Today, nearly 53% of the Northern Territory’s population lives in Darwin, the territory’s capital city. Darwin was established on the lands of the Larrakia, who define themselves as “Saltwater People.” Decimated by the epidemics brought by European settlers after September 9, 1839, when HMS Beagle sailed into Darwin harbor, the Larrakia have been extremely vocal about their land rights and native title claim since the early 1970s.
As mentioned above, this article only addresses the major Aboriginal groups from South Australia, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia. It fails, for obvious reasons, to discuss other equally important Aboriginal groups, such as the Amurdak from the Cobourg Peninsula, the Gurindji, and the Mudburra from the Victoria River region, the Adnyamathanha of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, or the Yolngu, inhabiting north-eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. For a better understanding of these groups’ role in the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the reader can rely on the AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia, the ANU Library, and the sources provided by the State Library of South Australia.
