The Mandjindja or Mantjintjarra are an
Aboriginal Australian
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...
people of
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 ...
belonging to the
Western Desert cultural bloc
The Western Desert cultural bloc or just Western Desert is a cultural region in central Australia covering about , including the Gibson Desert, the Great Victoria Desert, the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts in the Northern Territory, So ...
.
Country
According to
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.
Life
Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...
's estimate, the Mandjindja's territory extended over roughly , in the
sandhill terrain south of the
Warburton Range, from a place called ''Papakula''. Their western extension went as far as the Gillen and Throssell lakes. Their southern boundaries lay around Amy Rocks and the Saunders Range. Their eastern confines; lay around Lengama, identified provisorily as somewhere possibly east of the Sydney Yeo Chasm. They took in also ''Wardadikanja'' in the southeast.
Language
The language of the Mandjindja people is the
Mandjindja language.
Native title claim
The Mandjindja and
Ngalia sought recognition of their inherent land rights through the native title claim process in the
Federal Court of Australia. A 1996 claim was dismissed.
In March 2009 the Mantjintjarra Ngalia claim came a step closer to recognition after passing the registration test of the Native Title Act. They claimed traditional ownership of the area from around
Lake Wells
Lake Wells is an ephemeral salt lake in the centre of Western Australia, lying in close proximity to Lake Carnegie. It lies east of Wiluna and is at the southern edge of the Little Sandy Desert and south western border of the Gibson Desert. It al ...
in the east to
Lake Darlot
Lake Darlot is an ephemeral lake in the centre of Western Australia, lying approximately east-north-east of Leinster, and north of Leonora in the Goldfields-Esperance region. Its surface elevation is 434 metres above mean sea-level.
Discove ...
and Lake Miranda in the west to
Cosmo Newberry
Cosmo Newbery (also spelt Cosmo Newberry) is a small Aboriginal community in Western Australia, east of Perth between Laverton and Warburton in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. In the , Cosmo Newberry had a total popul ...
through to
Leonora and Lake Barlee up to
Wiluna in the north. The application was discontinued in 2015.
Alternative names
* ''Mandjindjara.''
* ''Mandjindji.''
* ''Mangundjara.''
* ''Mandjindjiwongga.''
* ''Manjinjiwonga.''
* ''Mantjila.''
* ''Mangula.''
* ''Kalgonei.''
* ''Kalgoneidjara (
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 ...
language name for the Mandjindja and
Wenamba
The Wenamba are an indigenous Australian people of the central eastern edge of Western Australia in the Goldfields Region.
Language
The Wenamba spoke a dialect similar to that of the Pintupi.
Country
The Wenamba ranged over an estimated . Norma ...
).
* ''Nanggarangku.''(
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 ...
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
used of the Mandjindja and the
Ngalia, bearing the sense of 'hostile men')
* ''Mandshindshi.''
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia