Population
The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded a population of 201 people (with 94% being of Aboriginal background) in the 2011 Census. That represented a decrease since the 2006 census from 219 people. 26.1% of the residents were below 15 years of age, and 2% aged over 65 years of age. Median weekly income was $276, some $70–80 more than other Aboriginal communities but still far short of larger white settlements. [1]
Tapatjatjaka Community, on their website, state:
There are also people who have been living in the Titjikala area for several generations, but whose family members came from other areas. Their children, having been born in this area, are connected to its dreaming. Consequently, Titjikala has become the home to Arrernte (traditional owners), Luritja and Pitjantjatjara people. [3]
The above demonstrates the natural interconnection between language and cultural identity in Indigenous Australian culture.
History
Tapatjatjaka Community, on their website, gives the following history:
From the 1940s onwards families came to the Maryvale Station to work as stockmen and as domestic helpers. The station owners provided rations to the people who resided and worked on their stations.
Aboriginal people started settling in the area in the 1950s, when a mission truck visited every six weeks. Families would work at the surrounding stations as stockman, cameleers and domestic staff.
At this time the people still lived in traditional humpies. Water was fetched from a well mainly by donkey wagons, but also by foot or by camel. Children and women would travel back and forwards most of the day collecting water from the well and carrying it to the humpy area. The community obtained its food from rations from the station (flour, salt and meat). People also collected bush tucker including goannas, kangaroos, witchetty grubs, bush tomatoes and bush bananas.
Then in the early 1960s the community built their own sheds, much like garages, with concrete slabs for flooring. At this time the station laid piping from a good bore with the help of the Aboriginal people to provide a tap near the new buildings. As part of the village a church was built in the same garage style.
In the 1970s the first school was provided to the Titjikala people.
The community was originally a 200-hectare excision from the Francis Well water reserve and the stock route. It is within the Maryvale station pastoral lease, which was registered in 1978.
Titjikala community obtained freehold title to the excision in 1987 and in 1988 the Northern Territory Government gazetted the Titjikala control Plan, which places certain restrictions on land usage and development in the community. [4]
Facilities
Access to Titjikala is by road or air. The roads and the airstrip can be washed out during heavy rains. [7]
Gunya Titjikala is a tourist resort operated by Gunya Tourism at Titjikala. [8] ("Gunya" is another word for "humpie" or shelter.) Profits are delivered to the community through a trust account arrangement. Gunya Titjikala is unique in being funded through a private loan by Macquarie Bank executive Bill Moss, who provided $400,000 to start operations. The Indigenous Land Council has also contributed $250,000 in venture capital. [9] The Australian newspaper reported on 9 October 2007 that Gunya had suspended operations due to the cancellation of the Community Development Employment Program as part of the Howard Government's Northern Territory National Emergency Response interventions in the Northern Territory. [10]
Titjikala has a general store, school, women's centre, indigenous arts centre, [11] early learning centre, aged care program, laundry, mechanical workshop, basketball court, health clinic and Centrelink agent.
A primary school exists at Titjikala.
Titjikala and its surrounds are governed by the Tapatjatjaka Community Government Council. The council has a budget of approximately $4m and employs 26 people. [12]
A Lutheran church is based in Titjikala. The Lutheran Church has had a long association with the Titjikala community. [7]
There is no continuous Northern Territory police presence or police station in the community.
A permit is not required for a member of the public to visit Titjikala. Alcohol is banned from Titjikala and severe penalties apply for those taking alcohol into the community.
Alice Springs is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd, wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd. Known colloquially as 'The Alice' or simply 'Alice', the town is situated roughly in Australia's geographic centre. It is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin.
The Finke River, or Larapinta (Arrernte), is a river in central Australia, one of four main rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin and thought to be the oldest riverbed in the world. It flows for only a few days a year and when this happens, its water usually disappears into the sands of the Simpson Desert, rarely if ever reaching Lake Eyre.
Hermannsburg, also known as Ntaria, is an Aboriginal community in Ljirapinta Ward of the MacDonnell Shire in the Northern Territory of Australia, 125 kilometres (78 mi); west southwest of Alice Springs, on the Finke River, in the traditional lands of the Western Arrarnta people.
The Pitjantjatjara are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible.
Mutitjulu is an Aboriginal Australian community in the Northern Territory of Australia located at the eastern end of Uluṟu. It is named after a knee-shaped water-filled rock hole at the base of Uluṟu, and is located in the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Its people are traditional owners and joint managers of the park with Parks Australia. At the 2011 census, Mutitjulu had a population of 296, of which 218 (71.2%) were Aboriginal.
The Luritja dialect is the language of the Luritja people, an Aboriginal Australian group indigenous to parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It is one of several dialects in the Western Desert language group.
Kalka is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia administered under the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act 1981.
Papunya is a small Indigenous Australian community roughly 240 kilometres (150 mi) northwest of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is known as an important centre for Contemporary Indigenous Australian art, in particular the style created by the Papunya Tula artists in the 1970s, referred to colloquially as dot painting. Its population in 2016 was 404.
Aputula is a remote Indigenous Australian community in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is 317 km (197 mi) south of Alice Springs and 159 km (99 mi) east of Kulgera roadhouse on the Stuart Highway, near the border with South Australia. The Finke River, which is dry for most of the year except during occasional floods and is part of the Lake Eyre basin, passes within a few kilometres of the community.
The Western Desert language, or Wati, is a dialect cluster of Australian Aboriginal languages in the Pama–Nyungan family.
Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia located in the locality of Ghan.
The MacDonnell Regional Council is a local government area of the Northern Territory, Australia. The region covers an area of 268,329 square kilometres and had an estimated population of 6,863 people in June 2018.
Kaltukatjara, also known as Docker River, is a remote Indigenous Australian community in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is southwest of Alice Springs, west of the Stuart Highway, near the Western Australia and Northern Territory border. The township is on a wadi called the Docker Creek on the north side of the west end of the Petermann Ranges in the southwest corner of the Northern Territory of Australia.
Lower Arrernte, also known as Lower Southern Arrernte, Lower Aranda, Lower Southern Aranda and Alenjerntarrpe, was an Arandic language. Lower Arrernte was spoken in the Finke River area, near the Overland Telegraph Line station at Charlotte Waters, just north of the border between South Australia and the Northern Territory, and in the Dalhousie area in S.A. It had been extinct since the last speaker died in 2011, but there is now a language revival project under way.
Haasts Bluff, also known as Ikuntji, is an Aboriginal Australian community in Central Australia, a region of the Northern Territory. The community is located in the MacDonnell Shire local government area, 227 kilometres (141 mi) west of Alice Springs. At the 2006 census, the community, including outstations, had a population of 207.
Bess Nungarrayi Price is an Aboriginal Australian activist and politician. She was a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 2012 to 2016, representing the electorate of Stuart, and was Minister for Community Services in the Giles Ministry. She lives in Alice Springs in Central Australia, in the Northern Territory.
Larapinta Drive is a designated state route in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Areyonga is a small town in the Northern Territory of Australia, located about 220 km (140 mi) west of Alice Springs. As of 2016 it had a population of about 195, most of whom are Aboriginal people of the Pitjantjatjara language group.
The Katiti Aboriginal Land Trust is a land trust for a block of land in the southwest of the Northern Territory of Australia located in the locality of Petermann. It was created through the Katiti Land Claim in 1980. The trust's owners include Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Luritja people. The block of land is officially referred to as Northern Territory Portion 1818. It borders the larger Petermann Land Trust area and Uluṟu–Kata Tjuṯa National Park to the north and west, and two pastoral stations to the east and south: Curtin Springs and Mulga Park. The town of Yulara is excluded from the Land Trusts, and sits between the Katiti block and Uluṟu–Kata Tjuṯa National Park.
The Luritja or Loritja people, also known as Kukatja or Kukatja-Luritja, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Their traditional lands are immediately west of the Derwent River, that forms a frontier with the Arrernte people, with their lands covering some 27,000 square kilometres (10,300 sq mi). Their language is the Luritja dialect, a Western Desert language.
