Over recent decades groups of Pintupi have moved back to their traditional country, as part of what has come to be called the outstation movement.
In the 1960s, the Menzies Liberal government forced the removal of traditional-living Pintupi to settlements east of their country, closer to Alice Springs.
This policy also involved the forced removal of thousands of Aboriginal children from their parents and their dispersal into government or religious institutions or foster care (see Stolen Generation).
Conditions were so bad that 129 people, or almost one-sixth of the residents, died of treatable diseases such as hepatitis, meningitis and encephalitis between 1962 and 1966[citation needed].
In common with neighbouring groups, such as the Warlpiri, the Pintupi have a complex kinship system, with eight different kin groups, made more so by distinct prefixes for male and female skin names; "Tj" for males, "N" for females:[a] The Pintupi refer to places and their attached dreaming stories by the skin names of their owners or ancestral heroes which passed through the area.