The Ngurrara and Ngururrpa are overlapping groupings of

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 ...

peoples of the

Great Sandy Desert The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,IBRA Version 6.1
data

, in the central

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 ...

and southern

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

regions of Western Australia. Both groups are represented by various

Aboriginal corporation A Registered Native Title Body Corporate (RNTBC) is a corporation nominated by a group of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people for the purposes of native title in Australia, to represent their native title rights and interests, once that ...

s which look after their

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty to that land by another colonising state. The requirements of proof for the recognition of ab ...

interests.

Name

The

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

''Ngurrara'' signifies "home". ''Ngururrpa'' means "our country in the middle".

Country and people

The word Ngurrara refers to their native country, properly called ''Mawurritjiyi'', the word for the

Tanami Desert The Tanami Desert () is a desert in northern Australia, situated in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It has a rocky terrain and small hills. The Tanami was the Northern Territory's final frontier and was not fully explored by Austral ...

. The Ngurrara comprise the

Walmajarri The Walmadjari (Walmajarri) people, also known as Tjiwaling and Wanaseka, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Name The two names reflect different Walmadjari preferences. Their western bands accept ...

Wangkatjunga Martu Wangka is a variety of the Western Desert language that emerged during the 20th century in Western Australia as several Indigenous communities shifted from their respective territories to form a single community. It refers to both a dia ...

(aka Martu Wangka),

Mangala Mangala (, IAST: ) is the personification, as well as the name for the planet Mars, in Hindu literature. Also known as Lohita (), he is the deity of anger, aggression, as well as war. According to Vaishnavism, he is the son of Bhumi, the eart ...

and Juwaliny (a dialect of Walmajarri) language groups. Peoples of the Walmajarri, Wangkatjunga, Ngarti and Kukatja language groups have called their country Ngururrpa.

Native title

Ngurrara

In ''Kogolo v Western Australia'' (2007) the Ngurrara won recognition of their

rights to . They presented their case by drawing a large painting of their land, Ngurrara, inscribed with figures from their mythological history associated with various points. Their land is under the custodianship of the Yanunijarra Aboriginal Corporation. There are several other native title claims under the Ngurrara name, some overlapping or shared with other groups, such as the

Martu people The ''Martu'' (Mardu) are a grouping of several Aboriginal Australian peoples in the Western Desert cultural bloc. Name The Martu people were originally speakers of various Wati languages in the Western Desert dialect continuum whose identit ...

. ''Helicopter Tjungarrayi and Ors on behalf of the Ngurra Kayanta People v The State of Western Australia'' (2012) and ''Bobby West & Anor v State of Western Australia'' (2015), jointly known as the Ngurra Kayanta claim, was determined in 2016/7, granting native title over an area of in the Great Sandy Desert north of Karratha. Ngurra Kayanta (Aboriginal Corporation) RNTBC is the trustee for this land.

Ngururrpa

Ngururrpa is the name used for a native title claim to land in the Great Sandy Desert, nearer the border with the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. In the case ''Payi Payi on behalf of the Ngururrpa People v The State of Western Australia'' (FCA 2113) on 18 October 2007, 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 the Ngururrpa people's exclusive native title rights over an area of over . The Parna Ngururrpa (Aboriginal Corporation) is the

RNTBC A Registered Native Title Body Corporate (RNTBC) is a corporation nominated by a group of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people for the purposes of native title in Australia, to represent their native title rights and interests, once that ...

which acts as the trustee for the land.

Indigenous Protected Areas

The

Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area The Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area (Ngururrpa IPA), covering an area of in the far eastern area of the Pilbara region, in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia, was declared in October 2020. It includes all of the land included in t ...

(IPA), covering an area of in the far eastern side of the Pilbara, in the Great Sandy Desert, was declared in October 2020. The IPA comprises the whole of the 2007 Ngururrpa Native Title Determination.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia Kimberley (Western Australia) Pilbara {{IndigenousAustralia-stub