The Western Desert cultural bloc or just Western Desert is a

cultural region In anthropology and geography, a cultural region, cultural sphere, cultural area or culture area refers to a geography with one relatively homogeneous human activity or complex of activities (culture). Such activities are often associated ...

in central Australia covering about , including the Gibson Desert, the

Great Victoria Desert The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia. History In 1875, British-born Australian explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cros ...

, the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

and

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. The Western Desert cultural bloc can be said to stretch from the

Nullarbor The Nullarbor Plain ( ; Latin: feminine of , 'no', and , 'tree') is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its ...

in the south to the Kimberley in the north, and from the Percival Lakes in the west through to the

Pintupi The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into ...

lands in the

Languages

The term is often used by anthropologists and linguists when discussing the 40 or so Aboriginal groups that live there, who speak dialects of one language, often called the Western Desert language.

Country

According to anthropologist Robert Tonkinson,

Extending over a million square miles, the Western Desert... covers a vast area of the interior of the continent. It extends across western South Australia into central and central northern Western Australia (south of the Kimberleys) and south-western Northern Territory, and it includes most of the hill country in northern South Australia..The area is marked by an overall similarity in both climatic conditions... and physiographical characteristics. More important, however, is its delineation as a distinct culture area.. its Aboriginal inhabitants share a common language (with dialectal variations), social organization, relationship to the natural environment, religion and mythology and aesthetic expression. The term Western Desert, then refers to both a cultural bloc and a geographical entity.'

History of contact

Ronald Berndt estimated that, before the European colonization of Australia, the Western Desert peoples may have numbered as many as 10,000, but that by the late 1950s, their numbers were down to between 1,371 and 2,200. Apart from the Canning Stock Route and the

Rabbit-proof fence The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence, and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits, and other agricultural pests from th ...

, white contact with this part of Australia was very rare, until the 1960s. Terry Long, a Native Patrol Officer employed by Weapons Research Establishment, observed:

No one had been out there. The desert, as far as the Department A Dept of Supplywas concerned... was an unknown, as it was to the whole of Western Australia. The
Warburton Ranges Warburton or Warburton Ranges is an Aboriginal Australian community in Western Australia, just to the south of the Gibson Desert and located on the Great Central Road (part of the Outback Way) and Gunbarrel Highway. At the , Warburton had a pop ...
ereas far as anybody got. People in those days knew absolutely nothing about Aborigines.''Terry Long, (WRE) to help "clear" the desert beneath the trajectory of the Blue Streak missile.'.

Dialect groups

* Antekarinja * Kukatja * Luritja *

Mandjildjara The Mandjildjara, also written ''Manyjilyjarra,'' are an indigenous Australian people of Western Australia. Country In Norman Tindale's estimation the Mandjildjara's lands extended over some , running along what was later known as the Canning St ...

* Martu *

Ngaatjatjarra The Ngaatjatjarra (otherwise spelt Ngadadjara) are an Indigenous Australian people of Western Australia, with communities located in the north eastern part of the Goldfields-Esperance region. Name The ethnonym Ngaatjatjarra, in line with a gener ...

Ngaanyatjarra The Ngaanyatjarra, also known (along with the Pini) as the Nana, are an Indigenous Australian cultural group of Western Australia. They are located in the Goldfields-Esperance region, as well as Northern Territory. Language Ngaanyatjarra is ...

* Pini (Nana) *

Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) 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 (all are va ...

* Spinifex people * Wongatha *

Yankunytjatjara The Yankunytjatjara people, also written Yankuntjatjarra, Jangkundjara, and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of South Australia. Language Yankunytjatjara is a Western Desert language belonging to the Wati la ...

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * Dusset, Laurent (2005). ''Assimilating Identities: Social Networks and the Diffusion of Sections''. Sydney: Oceania Publications, Monograph 57. * Morgan, Margaret (1999). ''Mt Margaret: A Drop in a Bucket''. Lawson, NSW: Mission Publications of Australia (out of print). * Harrington-Smith on behalf of the Wongatha People v State of Western Australia (No 9) Page 4 of 112 http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2007/31.html 5/17/2007 accessed 5 September 2009 Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory Canning Stock Route Culture of South Australia Culture of Western Australia Indigenous Australian culture {{IndigenousAustralia-stub