The Spinifex people, or Pila Nguru, are an Indigenous Australian people, whose traditional lands are situated in the Great Victoria Desert

Great Victoria Desert

The Great Victoria Desert is a barren and sparsely populated desert area of southern Australia.-Location and description:The Great Victoria is the biggest desert in Australia and consists of many small sandhills, grassland plains, areas with a closely packed surface of pebbles and salt lakes...

,Anne Loxley, "Pila Nguru: The Spinifex People", The Sydney Morning Herald, 2002-08-03. Retrieved 2007-04-21. in the Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n state of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, adjoining the border with South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

, to the north of the Nullarbor Plain

Nullarbor Plain

The Nullarbor Plain 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 north. It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about...

. They maintain in large part their traditional hunter-gatherer

Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...

 existence within the territory, over which their claims to Native title

Native title

Native title is the Australian version of the common law doctrine of aboriginal title.Native title is "the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs"...

 and associated collective rights were recognised by a November 28, 2000 Federal Court

Federal Court of Australia

The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law , along with some summary criminal matters. Cases are heard at first instance by single Judges...

 decision. In 1997 an art project was started in which indigenous paintings became part of the title claim. A major exhibit of their works in London in 2005 brought the artists wide attention.

Pila Nguru translates as "home country in the flat between sandhills". Their 'common' name comes from the Spinifex

Triodia (plant genus)

Triodia is a large genus of hummock-forming grass endemic to Australia; they are commonly known as spinifex, although they are not a part of the coastal genus Spinifex. There are currently 64 recognised species...

 grasses, which are prevalent in this desert

Desert

A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...

 region. As European settlers of the region considered the lands remote, inhospitable and unsuited for agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, and even pastoralism

Pastoralism

Pastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and...

; there has been comparatively little direct contact between the two cultures and peoples.

1900-1952

Settlers were granted pastoral leases from around 1910, but once they saw the arid land, they did not attempt agriculture. Some religious missions were attempted in the 1930s, since the new railway often attracted curious indigenous people to it out of the bush. By the 1950s, so little was known about these people that the British chose the Nullarbor for nuclear weapons testing, as they believed it to be devoid of people.

Atomic testing, 1953-1957

When graded roads were built for the Giles Weather Station

Giles Weather Station

Giles Weather Station is located in Western Australia near the South Australian border, about West-South-West of Alice Springs and West of Uluru. It is the only staffed weather station within an area of about and is situated mid-continent and near the core of the subtropical jetstream...

 (part of the Weapons Research Establishment) during 1952-1955, officials learned that indigenous people - probably then around 150 - lived west of the sites. An officer, the expert bushman Walter MacDougall (1907–1976), was sent to warn them of the impending tests. A total of nine small hydrogen bombs ranging up to 25 kilotons were tested at Emu Junction

Emu Field

Emu Field is located in the desert of South Australia, at . Variously known as Emu Field, Emu Junction or Emu, it was the site of the Operation Totem pair of nuclear tests conducted by the British government in October 1953.The site was surveyed by Len Beadell in 1952...

 (2 tests, 1953) and Maralinga

Maralinga, South Australia

Maralinga, South Australia in the remote western areas of South Australia was the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Indigenous Australian people. Maralinga was the site of the secret British nuclear tests in the 1950s. The site measures about 3,300 km² in area...

 (7 tests, 1956–1957). Given that only one officer and an assistant were assigned to warn the Spinifex people who lived across an enormous area far to the west of the test sites, many of the Spinifex were never informed, nor did they leave the area. Officially, all were forced to leave their lands and were not allowed within 200 km of ground zero

Ground zero

The term ground zero describes the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation...

. Officials made a leaflet drop, but the Spinifex could not read the leaflets and were wary and afraid of the aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

.

In the later stages of the bomb trials, MacDougall discovered that up to 40 Spinifex may have been hunting over the eastern portion of the prohibited Maralinga area while the tests were being conducted, moving as far east as Vokes Hill and Waldana. One family of twelve were the nearest people, living at Nurrari Lakes less than 200 km west from Maralinga. Although close enough to hear the larger bombs explode, they were healthy several years after the tests.

The Australian Royal Commission was unable to determine if Maralinga Tjarutja

Maralinga, South Australia

Maralinga, South Australia in the remote western areas of South Australia was the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Indigenous Australian people. Maralinga was the site of the secret British nuclear tests in the 1950s. The site measures about 3,300 km² in area...

 or Pila Nguru people had been exposed to damaging levels of radiation from fallout

Nuclear fallout

Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...

, due to the lack of medical records and medical centres. Maralinga bomb plume maps show prevailing northerly winds during tests, whereas the Spinifex lands are 300 km to the west of Maralinga. The closest group was at Nurrari Lakes about 180 km west. Scott Cane's otherwise definitive native title study, Pila Nguru (2000), contained almost no details as to how bomb testing radiation affected the Spinifex people.

Native Title

In 1997 the Spinifex Arts Project was begun to help document the Native Title claims. Both Native Title paintings, the Men’s Combined and the Women’s Combined, document the entire Spinifex area; they show the claimants' birthplaces and express the important traditional stories that cross and give shape to the area.

The Spinifex people were the second tribe in Western Australia to receive recognition of their Native Title

Native title

Native title is the Australian version of the common law doctrine of aboriginal title.Native title is "the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs"...

 land rights

Land rights

Land law is the form of law that deals with the rights to use, alienate, or exclude others from land. In many jurisdictions, these species of property are referred to as real estate or real property, as distinct from personal property. Land use agreements, including renting, are an important...

 in 2000, in accordance with Section 87 (agreement) of the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993

Native Title Act 1993

The Native Title Act of 1993 provides for determinations of native title in Australia. The Act was passed by the Keating Labor Government in response to the High Court's decision in Mabo v Queensland...

. The ruling, by the Federal Court of Australia

Federal Court of Australia

The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law , along with some summary criminal matters. Cases are heard at first instance by single Judges...

, in a case brought by a third party on behalf of the Spinifex People, found that agreement had been reached between the applicants and the two named respondents: the State Government of Western Australia

Government of Western Australia

The formation of the Government of Western Australia is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1890, although it has been amended many times since then...

 and the Shire of Laverton, over a sector of land encompassing around 55,000 km².

This territory - which was designated as either unallocated land or park reserve, and contained no pastoral lease

Pastoral lease

A pastoral lease is Crown land that government allows to be leased, generally for the purposes of farming.-Australia:Pastoral leases exist in both Australian commonwealth law and state jurisdictions....

s - lies to the north of the lands of the Nullarbor People, to the east of the Pilki People and to the south of the Ngaanyatjarra

Ngaanyatjarra

Ngaanyatjarra is an Indigenous Australian cultural group in the Western Desert, Central Australia.-Meaning and origin of the name:Ngaanya literally means 'this' and -tjarra means 'with/having' ; the compound term means 'those that use "ngaanya" to say "this"'...

 Lands, the eastern boundary being formed by the South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

n border. Apart from the area of two Nature Reserves, the only specific "other interests" identified within the territory was for public right-of-way

Easement

An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...

 along an existing road which traversed some of the territory.

The Native Title claim was made by twenty-one families constituting the current Spinifex people. Some Spinifex had begun returning to their land from around 1980. From 2001 many of those who left to live at the Christian missions have since returned to their homelands and the Unnamed Conservation Park Biosphere Reserve (now Mamungari Conservation Park). In 2004 the government turned over the pristine wilderness

Wilderness

Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...

 area of 21,000 sq/km jointly to the Pila Nguru and the Maralinga Tjarutja

Maralinga, South Australia

Maralinga, South Australia in the remote western areas of South Australia was the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Indigenous Australian people. Maralinga was the site of the secret British nuclear tests in the 1950s. The site measures about 3,300 km² in area...

.

Artworks

In early 2005, the Spinifex people became famous for their solo and group artworks, due to the effect of a major art exhibition of their work in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Their boldly-coloured 'dot paintings

Australian Aboriginal art

Indigenous Australian art is art made by the Indigenous peoples of Australia and in collaborations between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians . It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, wood carving, rock carving, sculpture, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting...

' are not the usual polished commodities produced by many northern tribes for sale to a non-aboriginal art market, but are authentic works that the Spinifex have made for their own purposes.

See also

• Indigenous People
• Mamungari Conservation Park
• Pitjantjatjara people

Further reading

• Kalgoorlie, W.A. Pila Nguru: art and song from the Spinifex people. Paupiyala Tjarutja, 1999.
• Cane, Scott. Pila Nguru: an ethnography of the Spinifex People in the context of native title. 2000.

External links

• Video of British Nuclear Tests
• Paintings by Spinifex People
• Spinifex Native Title map Southern Australia pdf
• Spinifex Native Title map Western Australia pdf
• Federal Court decision on Native Title claim (Mark Anderson on behalf of the Spinifex People v State of Western Australia [2000] FCA 1717)
• Iain Grandage, "Journeys with Spinif", SOUNDS AUSTRALIAN NO 68 (2006), THE JOURNAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSIC CENTRE (pdf)

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