TheWarumungu (orWarramunga) are a group ofAboriginal Australians of theNorthern Territory. Today, Warumungu are mainly concentrated in the region ofTennant Creek andAlice Springs. Warumungu language calls Alice SpringsWarm Springs, and this is its original name.[citation needed]
Their language isWarumungu. It is similar to theWarlpiri spoken by theWarlpiri people. It is a suffixing language, in whichverbs are formed by adding a tensesuffix (although some verbs are formed bycompounding a preverb).[1] As are many of the survivingIndigenous Australian languages, the Warumungu language is undergoing rapid change. Themorphology used by younger speakers differs significantly than the one used by older speakers.[2] An example of a Warumungu sentence might be "apurtu im deya o warraku taun kana", meaning "Father's mother, is she there, in town, or not?".[3]
Warumungu is classified as a living language, but the number of speakers seemed to be decreasing quickly and by the mid-1990s, Australian linguist Robert Hoogenraad estimated that there were only about 700 people who could speak some Warumungu;[4] by 2016, there were 320 speakers.[5] Speakers have been shifting toKriol since 2007.[5] Today the Warumungu estimate their speaker population to be 700 and increasing.
InNorman Tindale's estimation, the Warumungu's lands once extended over some 21,300 square miles (55,000 km2), from the northernmost reach at Mount Grayling (Renner Springs) southwards to the headwaters of the Gosse River. The eastern boundary was aroundAlroy and Rockhampton Downs. The western limits ran to the sand plan 50 miles west ofTennant Creek.[6]
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In the 1870s, early whiteexplorers described the Warumungu as a flourishingnation.[7] However, by 1915, invasion andreprisal had brought them to the brink ofstarvation.[7][8] In 1934, a reserve that had been set aside for the Warumungu in 1892 was revoked in order to clear the way forgold prospecting. By the 1960s, the Warumungu had been entirely removed from their native land.[7]
"The post contact history of the Warumungu people is an unvarnished tale of the subordinaton of an Aboriginal society and its welfare to European interests... European settlement meant forced dispossession. This was not a once and for all process, but continued with the Warumungu being shunted around, right up to the 1960s, to accommodate various pastoral and mining interests."[9]
Tennant Creek is the urban centre of Warumungu country. During the 1970s, the era ofFederal government self-determination policy, Aboriginal people began to move or return to Tennant Creek fromcattle stations andWarrabri Aboriginal settlement. In the face of opposition at their attempts to settle in the town, from authorities and European towns people, Aboriginal people began to establish organisations to gain representation, infrastructure and services for their community. Over the next decade a housing authority Warramunga Pabulu Housing Association (later Julali-kari Council), a health service Anyininginyi Congress and an office of the Central Land Council was opened. Today, Aboriginal people of the region have rights to country surrounding the town, claimed and recognised under theAboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. The original land claim was lodged in 1978, for a decade the Warumungu fought for the return of their traditional lands. The ruling was made in 1988 and the hand back of the claim areas began soon after.[10]
At the telegraph station to the south atBarrow Creek, conflict between the localKaytetye and Europeans broke out in the 1870s and lead to punitive expeditions, in which many Kaytetye, Warumungu,Anmatyerre, andAlyawarre and Warlpiri were killed. Conflict, largely over cattle, and resultantfrontier violence occurred in many places in central Australia in the first 50 years of settlement, causing the displacement of Aboriginal people. In the early 1900s Alyawarre andWakaya fled violence atHatches Creek and moved toAlexandria Station and other stations on theBarkly Tableland. Many moved later toLake Nash. Eastern Warlpiri people fled after theConiston massacre in 1928, many onto Warumungu country.[10]
By the 1890s it is estimated that 100 people were living at camps around theTennant Creek Telegraph Station, with some receivingrations, while some worked for the station. Many came to the site during the 1891-93 droughts, to the perennial waterholes along the creek, which Warumungu people traditionally used in drought years. An area of dry country to the east of the Telegraph Station was gazetted as a Warumungu Reserve in 1892, to be revoked in 1934 to allow mining in the area.[10]
In the 1930s gold was discovered, starting agold rush, which brought hopefuls from across the country. Aboriginal people worked on the mines, many of which were located on what had been the Warumungu Reserve. Tennant Creek town was established in 1934, at a site 7 mi (11 km) to the south of the Telegraph Station. It was off-limits to Aboriginal people until the 1960s. Warumungu and Alyawarre people also worked at mines in theDavenport Murchison Ranges, afterwolfram was discovered at Hatcher's Creek in 1913. Many Aboriginal people spent substantial periods of their lives there and on neighbouring Kurandi Station, where in 1977 Aboriginal workers went onstrike and staged a walk-off.[10]
The life histories of most people include their experiences living on cattle stations, which eventually surrounded the original site of European settlement. Vast tracts of Warumungu country had been granted aspastoral leases and were stocked from the 1880s onwards. Running cattle on these lands was incompatible with Aboriginalhunting and gathering practices and people were forced to settle on stations or the reserve. Many men worked asstockmen,drovers, butchers and gardeners, while women carried out domestic work in the station houses. Payment was generally in rations only and conditions were generally very poor.[10]
In 1978, theCentral Land Council of the Northern Territory made a claim on behalf of the Warumungu under theAboriginal Land Rights Act. A lengthylegal battle ensued, in which thelitigations eventually went to theHigh Court of Australia. Fifteen years later, in 1993, most of theland claim was finally returned to the Warumungu.[7] The Warumungu Land Claim is made up of ten separate parcels of land, which together make up 3,090 square kilometres (1,190 sq mi).[11] In March 1993, Michael Maurice, a former Aboriginal Land Commissioner, said of the ordeal:
The problem with the Northern Territory Government then, was it didn't accept the underlying principles of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It didn't accept that it was for the Commonwealth to determine the conditions on which Aboriginal people could acquire land in the Northern Territory, so its attitude was one of resistance.
— Michael Maurice, March 1993[7]
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Wollunqua is the Warumungu people's version of theRainbow Serpent, acreator being common to a number of Aboriginalcreation stories.[12]
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