The Yindjibarndi are an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

people of the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, sparsely populated regions of Western Australia, region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people; wealth disparity; its ancient landscapes; the prevailing r ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. They form the majority of Aboriginal people around Roebourne (the Millstream area). Their traditional lands lie around the

Fortescue River The Fortescue River is an ephemeral river in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It is the third longest river in the state. Course The river rises near Deadman Hill in the Ophthalmia Range about 30 km south of Newman, Western Austr ...

Language

Yindjibarndi, with around 1,000 speakers, has been called the most innovative descendant of then proto-Ngayarta language. It is mutually intelligible with Kurruma. Due to their displacement in the colonisation process, which forced them into Roebourne, many speakers are Ngarluma people who have adopted Yindjibarndi. Their spatial concepts regarding landscape of do not translate with any equivalent conceptual extension into English.

Country

Yindjibarndi ancestral territory has been estimated to cover approximately . It is located on the lower

Hamersley Range The Hamersley Range is a mountainous region of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The range was named on 12 June 1861 by explorer Francis Thomas Gregory after Edward Hamersley, a prominent promoter of his exploration expedition to the ...

plateau south of the Pialin at the junction of Portland Creek with the

, east along a line formed by the edge of the scarp facing the eastern headwaters of Yule River; east along the

to Marana Pool, about 10 miles west of Kudaidari; south to the clifflike north-facing scarp of the higher

plateau, roughly along a line from Mount Elvira east-southeast to Mount George. The southern boundary is marked by the change from open porcupine grass country to the densely thicketed mulga country extending south.

Ecology

Traditionally, until the arrival of Europeans, the Yindjibarndi lived along the middle sector of the valley through which the

runs, and the nearby uplands. Beginning in the 1860s pastoralists established cattle stations on their homeland, and the Yindjibarndi were herded into settlements. Today most of them are congregated in and around the traditional Ngarluma territory whose centre is Roebourne.

Native title

The Yindjibardni people, alongside the Ngarluma people, are a party to the land access agreement for the Woodside-operated

North West Shelf Venture The North West Shelf Project (NWS), also known as the North West Shelf Venture, is an Australian resource development project, extracting natural gas from under the ocean from the North West Shelf off the coast of Western Australia. Running sinc ...

, executed in 1998. Under the agreement, Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people remain the

traditional owner Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title right ...

representatives for the North West Shelf Venture area, which includes the Karratha Gas Plant. The 1998 agreement established the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation Ltd, which operates out of Roebourne. As of 2022, NYFL is led by internationally renowned First Nations leader Michael Woodley as Chairman, and former ASX top 20 corporate leader, and First Nations advocate, Sean-Paul Stephens. Under the leadership of Woodley and Stephens, NYFL has been restructured and is regarded as the primary social Impact-focussed Traditional Owner organisation in the region. The mining magnate

Andrew Forrest John Andrew Henry Forrest (born 18 November 1961), nicknamed Twiggy, is an Australian businessman. He is best known as the former CEO (and current non-executive chairman) of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), and has other interests in the mining ...

, head of

Fortescue Metals Group Fortescue is a global metal mining company headquartered in Australia. Fortescue focused on iron ore mining under the name of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) until July 2023. As of 2017, Fortescue is the fourth-largest iron ore producer in the ...

(FMG), which extracts ore at the Solomon iron ore hub on the Yindjibarndi's traditional land, waged a 14-year legal battle to assert the company's rights over use of the land. In 2017, the

Federal Court of Australia The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indictable (mo ...

recognised that the Yindjibarndi had exclusive native title rights over some , and the court reaffirmed its decision in 2020 when FMG appealed to have the determination overturned. In 2022 the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) asked the Federal Court to rule on compensation, after attempts to negotiate an

Indigenous land use agreement Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title right ...

had stalled. YAC continues its battle in the courts for compensation. They are seeking unpaid royalties of more than , as well as damages that could amount to more hundreds of millions, for "loss of

sacred sites A sacred space, sacred ground, sacred place, sacred temple, holy ground, holy place or holy site is a location which is regarded to be sacred or hallowed. The sacredness of a natural feature may accrue through tradition or be granted through a ...

and spiritual connection to the land". The claim was initially discussed at a meeting between FMG and YAC in March 2011. The Western Australian Government may also bear responsibility for allowing the mining to take place without the permission of the Yindjibarndi people. The lawyer acting for the YAC sees it as a landmark case, as it would be "the first case that sets down the benchmark for compensation to be paid under the '' Native Title Act'' by a miner".

Notable Yindjibarndi people

* Allery Sandy, artist * Alice Guiness, artist

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{Authority control Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia Pilbara