Their language is Warumungu, belonging to the Pama–Nyungan family. It is similar to the Warlpiri spoken by the Warlpiri people. It is a suffixing language, in which verbs are formed by adding a tense suffix (although some verbs are formed by compounding a preverb).[1] As are many of the surviving Indigenous Australian languages, the Warumungu language is undergoing rapid change. The morphology used by younger speakers differs significantly than the one used by older speakers.[2] An example of a Warumungu sentence might be " apurtu im deya o warraku taun kana ", meaning " Father's mother, is she there, in town, or not? ".[3]
Warumungu is classified as a living language, but the number of speakers seemed to be decreasing quickly and by the mid-1950s, Australian linguist Robert Hoogenraad estimated that there were only about 700 people who could speak some Warumungu;[4] by 2016, there were 320 speakers.[5] Speakers have been shifting to Kriol since 2007.[5]
Country
In Norman Tindale's estimation, the Warumungu's lands once extended over some 21,300 square miles (55,000km2), from the northernmost reach at Mount Grayling (Renner Springs) southwards to the headwaters of the Gosse River. The eastern boundary was around Alroy and Rockhampton Downs. The western limits ran to the sand plan 50 miles west of Tennant Creek.[6]
History
Designs used during the performance of a snake totem ceremony (pub. in The commonwealth of Australia; federal handbook, prepared in connection with the eighty-fourth meeting of the British association for the advancement of science, held in Australia, August, 1914 by George Handley Knibbs.
In the 1870s, early white explorers described the Warumungu as a flourishing nation.[7] However, by 1915, invasion and reprisal had brought them to the brink of starvation.[7][8] In 1934, a reserve that had been set aside for the Warumungu in 1892 was revoked in order to clear the way for gold prospecting. By the 1960s, the Warumungu had been entirely removed from their native land.[7]
"The post contact history of the Warumungu people is an unvarnished tale of the subordinaton of an Aboriginal society and its welfare to European interests... European settlement meant forced dispossession. This was not a once and for all process, but continued with the Warumungu being shunted around, right up to the 1960s, to accommodate various pastoral and mining interests."[9]
Tennant Creek is the urban centre of Warumungu country. During the 1970s, the era of Federal government self-determination policy, Aboriginal people began to move or return to Tennant Creek from cattle stations and Warrabri Aboriginal settlement. In the face of opposition at their attempts to settle in the town, from authorities and European towns people, Aboriginal people began to establish organisations to gain representation, infrastructure and services for their community. Over the next decade a housing authority Warramunga Pabulu Housing Association (later Julali-kari Council), a health service Anyininginyi Congress and an office of the Central Land Council was opened. Today, Aboriginal people of the region have rights to country surrounding the town, claimed and recognised under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. The original land claim was lodged in 1978, for a decade the Warumungu fought for the return of their traditional lands. The ruling was made in 1988 and the hand back of the claim areas began soon after.[10]
At the telegraph station to the south at Barrow Creek, conflict between the local Kaytetye and Europeans broke out in the 1870s and lead to punitive expeditions, in which many Kaytetye, Warumungu, Anmatyerre, and Alyawarre and Warlpiri were killed. Conflict, largely over cattle, and resultant frontier violence occurred in many places in central Australia in the first 50 years of settlement, causing the displacement of Aboriginal people. In the early 1900s Alyawarre and Wakaya fled violence at Hatcher's Creek and moved to Alexandria Station and other stations on the Barkly Tableland. Many moved later to Lake Nash. Eastern Warlpiri people fled after the Coniston massacre in 1928, many onto Warumungu country.[10]
By the 1890s it is estimated that 100 people were living at camps around the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station, with some receiving rations, while some worked for the station. Many came to the site during the 1891-93 droughts, to the perennial waterholes along the creek, which Warumungu people traditionally used in drought years. An area of dry country to the east of the Telegraph Station was gazetted as a Warumungu Reserve in 1892, to be revoked in 1934 to allow mining in the area.[10]
In the 1930s gold was discovered, starting a gold rush, which brought hopefuls from across the country. Aboriginal people worked on the mines, many of which were located on what had been the Warumungu Reserve. Tennant Creek town was established in 1934, at a site 7mi (11km) to the south of the Telegraph Station. It was off-limits to Aboriginal people until the 1960s. Warumungu and Alyawarre people also worked at mines in the Davenport Murchison Ranges, after wolfram was discovered at Hatcher's Creek in 1913. Many Aboriginal people spent substantial periods of their lives there and on neighbouring Kurandi Station, where in 1977 Aboriginal workers went on strike and staged a walk-off.[10]
The life histories of most people include their experiences living on cattle stations, which eventually surrounded the original site of European settlement. Vast tracts of Warumungu country had been granted as pastoral leases and were stocked from the 1880s onwards. Running cattle on these lands was incompatible with Aboriginal hunting and gathering practices and people were forced to settle on stations or the reserve. Many men worked as stockmen, drovers, butchers and gardeners, while women carried out domestic work in the station houses. Payment was generally in rations only and conditions were generally very poor.[10]
In 1978, the Central Land Council of the Northern Territory made a claim on behalf of the Warumungu under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. A lengthy legal battle ensued, in which the litigations eventually went to the High Court of Australia. Fifteen years later, in 1993, most of the land claim was finally returned to the Warumungu.[7] The Warumungu Land Claim is made up of ten separate parcels of land, which together make up 3,090 square kilometres (1,190sqmi).[11] In March 1993, Michael Maurice, a former Aboriginal Land Commissioner, said of the ordeal:
The problem with the Northern Territory Government then, was it didn't accept the underlying principles of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It didn't accept that it was for the Commonwealth to determine the conditions on which Aboriginal people could acquire land in the Northern Territory, so its attitude was one of resistance.
↑ Simpson? sfn error: no target: CITEREFSimpson (help)
↑ Maurice, M. Warumungu Land Claim. Report No.31. Report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Mr Justice Maurice, to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory. Australian Government Publishing Service. Canberra, 1988
The Warlpiri, sometimes referred to as Yapa, are a group of Aboriginal Australians defined by their Warlpiri language, although not all still speak it. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in the Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs. About 3,000 still speak the Warlpiri language. The word "Warlpiri" has also been romanised as Walpiri, Walbiri, Elpira, Ilpara, and Wailbri.
Tennant Creek is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western terminus of the Barkly Highway. At the 2021 census, Tennant Creek had a population of 3,080 people, of which 55% (1,707) identified themselves as Indigenous.
Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various speech taboos between certain kin or at particular times, such as during a mourning period for women or during initiation ceremonies for men, as was also the case with Caucasian Sign Language but not Plains Indian Sign Language, which did not involve speech taboo, or deaf sign languages, which are not encodings of oral language. There is some similarity between neighbouring groups and some contact pidgin similar to Plains Indian Sign Language in the American Great Plains.
The Alyawarre, also spelt Alyawarr and also known as the Iliaura, are an Aboriginal Australian people, or language group, from the Northern Territory. The Alyawarre are made up of roughly 1,200 associated peoples and actively engage in local traditions such as awelye painting.
The Gurindji are an Aboriginal Australian people of northern Australia, 460 kilometres (290 mi) southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory's Victoria River region.
The Kaytetye, also written Kaititya, and pronounced kay-ditch, are an Aboriginal Australian people who live around Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Their neighbours to the east are the Alyawarre, to the south the Anmatyerre, to the west the Warlpiri, and to the north the Warumungu. Kaytetye country is dissected by the Stuart Highway.
The Warumungu language is spoken by the Warumungu people in Australia's Northern Territory. In addition to spoken language, the Warumungu have a highly developed sign language.
The Anmatyerr, also spelt Anmatyerre, Anmatjera, Anmatjirra, Amatjere and other variations) are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory, who speak one of the Upper Arrernte languages.
Wagaya (Wakaya) is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of Queensland. Yindjilandji (Indjilandji) may have been a separate language. The linguist Gavan Breen recorded two dialects of the language, an Eastern and a Western variety, incorporating their description in his 1974 grammar.
Kaytetye is an Australian Aboriginal language primarily spoken in the Northern Territory north of Alice Springs by the Kaytetye people, who live around Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek. It belongs to the Arandic subgroup of the Pama-Nyungan languages and is related to Alyawarra, which is one of the Upper Arrernte dialects. It has an unusual phonology and there are no known dialects.
Warlmanpa Sign Language is a highly developed Australian Aboriginal sign language used by the Warlmanpa people of northern Australia
The Tennant Creek Telegraph Station is an historical site about 16 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia.
The Wakaya are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory.
The Kukatja people, also written Gugadja, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The Ngardi, also spelled Ngarti, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
The Yindjilandji are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.
The Wambaya people, also spelt Umbaia, Wombaia and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the southern Barkly Tableland of the Northern Territory. Their language is the Wambaya language. Their traditional lands have now been taken over by large cattle stations.
The Warlmanpa are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.
Ali Curung is an Indigenous Australian community in the Barkly Region of the Northern Territory. The community is located 170 km (106 mi) south of Tennant Creek, and 378 km (235 mi) north of Alice Springs. At the 2021 census, the community had a population of 394.
Peggy Napangardi Jones or Peggy Jones was a Warlpiri/ Warumungu woman born at Phillip Creek Station near Tennant Creek. She was a significant Australian Aboriginal artist who had 10 solo shows and approximately 50 group exhibitions. She was also selected in the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and acquired by many national and international collections.
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