Warlpiri people
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 (Mparntwe).
[6] Thus a sentence like ga (present tense) na (1) jani (am going) (2) jadidjara (3) (the north) gura (4) (towards binga (a long way)(5)-dju.
(6) (emphatic) Can be said with the same syntax, in gestures: '(1) touch chest/ (2) move right index finger/ (3) point north/ (4) with lips/ (5) click fingers (6) towards north.
[7] Kenneth Hale, an American linguist, learned the Warlpiri language and was adopted by the tribe, who knew him as Jabanungga.
[8] Warlpiri country is located in the Tanami Desert, east of the Northern Territory-Western Australia border, west of the Stuart Highway and Tennant Creek, and northwest of Alice Springs.
[9] Many Warlpiri people live in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine, and the smaller towns of Central Australia.
[1][4] Warlpiri traditional territory was resource-poor from the European perspective, and lay a considerable distance away from the main telegraph routes and highway infrastructure built by Europeans, a fact which meant they were not affected by these intrusive developments, allowing their culture to remain relatively intact and flourishing, unlike the Anmatyerre, the Kaytetye, Warumungu, Warlmanpa, Mudbura and Jingili peoples.
One consequence of this is that by the 1980s the Warlpiri people had expanded their range, moving into the lands of the Anmatyerre as the latter's population dropped.
People from the different language groups have been influenced by each other when residing at Balgo, Western Australia and Lajamanu, Northern Territory.
The recommendation handed down by Justice Sir William Kearney on 23 August 1985[11] and presented on 19 August 1986 was that "the whole of the claim area be granted to a Land Trust for the benefit of Aboriginals entitled by tradition to its use or occupation, whether or not the traditional entitlement is qualified as to place, time, circumstance, purpose or permission".
[12] Walpiri people now manage their Country as part of the Southern Tanami Indigenous Protected Area, declared in 2012.
[14] In the mid 1970s, Diane Bell undertook detailed work of the lives of Warlpiri women, summed up in her Daughters of the Dreaming (1982).
[15] Liam Campbell, in his Darby: One hundred years of life in a changing culture, (2006) recorded the autobiography of one Warlpiri man, Darby Jampijinpa Ross, a centenarian who lived through the profound changes affecting his people throughout the 20th century, including the death of family in the Coniston massacre.
[16] In 2000, the French anthropologist Françoise Dussart published a major study of the interplay of gender roles in the ritual maintenance and transmission by yampurru, holders of both sexes of the big secrets, regarding the tales and ceremonies concerning the Warrlpiri Dreaming (Jukurrpa).
[19][20] Singing and dancing are also used in Warlpiri culture for turning boys into men, curing sicknesses, childbirth, attacking enemies, and ensuring fertility.
Warlpiri people divide their relatives, and by extension the entire population, into eight named groups or subsections.
The Australian Government created training programs in the early 2000s, originally to help the economy and prevent welfare-dependent Indigenous people; however, this had the effect of separating them from their culture.
