Worrorra

The Worrorra, Wunambal and Ngarinyin peoples make up a cultural bloc known Wanjina Wunggurr, in which the Ngardi are sometimes also included.

[1][2] On their southern boundaries lay the lands of the Umida and Unggumi people; to their east the Ngarinyin, and northwards, west of the Princess May Range, the Wunambal.

The landscape is hilly sandstone terrain, quilted with spinifex and loose stands of bloodwood eucalypts, woollybutts and boabs.

[5] The shared culture is based on the dreamtime mythology and law whose creators are the Wanjina and Wunggurr spirits, ancestors of these peoples.

[7] Wunggurr is a variant on the Rainbow Serpent creator being belief, while the wandjina are local spirits, attached to places, and associated with particular clans.

[5] The Dambimangari (as of 2020[update] spelt Dambeemangarddee[13]) Aboriginal Corporation co-manages the Lalang-garram / Horizontal Falls Marine Park.

The larger plan is to create a total of 5,000,000 hectares (12,000,000 acres) of new national and marine reserves in Western Australia.

The new Maiyalam Marine Park covers an area off the north-western coast of King Sound and around Macleay Island.

[15] Many wild speculations arose concerning their origin, Arthur Capell linking them to the diffusion of megalithic cults and ultimately to chambered tombs in Europe and Egypt.

[20] The Worrorra left their traditional territory in 1956, settling in Mowanjum and later also Derby, with a few resident at Mount Barnett station and Kalumburu.

[22] The British-born Australian linguist Robert M. W. Dixon's career in Australian Aboriginal languages was first stimulated by his being informed by his tutor Michael Halliday of the extraordinary complexity of the indigenous languages spoken in the Kimberley region, and, on reading up on the topic, was particularly fascinated by descriptions of the intricacies of Worrorra which reportedly had 444 forms of the verb "to be".

[23] Though the Worrorra have not as highly developed a system of gestural language as many of their tribal neighbours, they do have a rich repertoire of manual signs to indicate a great many species of fauna, to the point of distinguishing the sex of the animal or bird alluded to.