Maralinga Tjarutja

Coordinates: 26°29′25″S 132°00′28″E / 26.4902777778°S 132.007777778°E / -26.4902777778; 132.007777778
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Maralinga Tjarutja
Federal division(s)
Grey
WebsiteMaralinga Tjarutja
LGAs around Maralinga Tjarutja:
Ngaanyatjarraku, WA
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara
 Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara
Laverton Shire, WA Maralinga Tjarutja Outback Communities Authority
Laverton Shire, WA Outback Communities Authority Outback Communities Authority

The Maralinga Tjarutja, or Maralinga Tjarutja Council, is the corporation representing the traditional

Anangu owners of the remote western areas of South Australia known as the Maralinga Tjarutja lands. The council was established by the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984. The area is one of the four regions of South Australia classified as an Aboriginal Council (AC) and not incorporated within a local government area
.

The

Aboriginal Australian people whose historic rights over the area have been officially recognised belong to the southern branch of the Pitjantjatjara people. The land includes a large area of land contaminated by British nuclear testing in the 1950s
, for which the inhabitants were eventually compensated in 1991.

There is a community centre at

Tjuntjuntjara 370 km (230 mi) to their west.[3]

Languages and peoples

The Maralinga Tjarutja people belong to a general

Yankunytjatjara.[4]

Ecology and cultural beliefs

The term

spinifex grasses[6] and good red soil (parna wiru) furnishing fine camping.[7]

Waterholes (kapi) have a prominent function in their mythology: they are inhabited by spirit children and thought of as birth places, and control of them demarcate the various tribal groups.

Rainbow serpent of Arnhem Land myth, was regarded as the creator of these kapi, and figured prominently in male initiation ceremonies.[9]

Contact

Daisy Bates (1919–1935) took up residence there it was thought that earlier groups had disappeared, replaced by an influx of spinifex people from the north. By her time, the Trans-Australian Railway route had just been completed, coinciding with a drought that drew the Western desert peoples to the depot at Ooldea.[11][12]

Beginning in the 1890s, there was a gradual encroachment by pastoralists up to the southern periphery of the Nullarbor Plain, but the lack of adequate water to sustain stock maintained the region relatively intact from intense exploitation.[12] In 1933 the United Aborigines Missions established itself there, drawing substantial numbers of desert folk to the site for food and clothing, and four years later, the government established a 2,000-square-mile (5,200 km2) reserve.[12] In 1941, the anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt spent several months in the Aboriginal camp at the water soak and mission, and in the following three-year period (1942–1945) wrote one of the first scientific ethnographies of an Australian tribal group, based on his interviews in a community of some 700 desert people.[13] Traditional life still continued since Ooldea lay on the fringe of the desert, and incoming Aboriginal people could return to their old hunting style.

Nuclear testing, dispossession and return

Further information: British nuclear tests at Maralinga

When the Australian Government decided in the early 1950s to set aside the Emu Field and Maralinga in the area for British nuclear testing, the community at Ooldea was forcibly removed from the land and resettled further south at Yalata, in 1952. Road blocks and soldiers barred any return.[6]

Yalata, bordering on the

ecological environment; in place of the spinifex plains to the north, the Maralinga Tjaruta people found an arid stone plain, with poor thin soil and a powdery limestone that kicked up a grey dust when disturbed. Their word for "grey", namely tjilpi also signified the greying elders of a tribe, and the Aboriginal residents of Yalata called the new area parna tjilpi, the "grey earth/ground", suggesting that their forced relocation to Yalata went concomitantly with ageing towards death.[14]

Between 1956 and 1957, seven atomic bombs were exploded on Maralinga land. In further minor trials from 1957 to 1962, plutonium was dispersed widely over much of the area.[15] Compensation in 1993 of A$13.5 million was determined after three elders flew to London and presented samples of the contaminated soil in London in October 1991.[16]

In 1962, the long-serving

freehold title in 1984, and the right to developmental funds from the State and Federal governments. They completed a move back into the area, to a new community called Oak Valley in March 1985.[18]

Under an agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia in 1995, efforts were made to clean up the Maralinga site, being completed in 1995. Tonnes of soil and debris contaminated with plutonium and uranium were buried in two trenches about 16 metres (52 ft) deep.[19] The effectiveness of the cleanup has been disputed on a number of occasions.[20][21]

In 2003 South Australian Premier Mike Rann opened a new school costing A$2,000,000 at Oak Valley. The new school replaced two caravans with no running water or air-conditioning, a facility that had been described as the "worst school in Australia".[22]

In May 2004, following the passage of special legislation, Rann fulfilled a pledge he had made to Maralinga leader

Ooldea area, which also included the site of Daisy Bates' mission camp.[24]

In 2014, the last part of the land remaining in the

Woomera Prohibited Area, known as "Section 400", was excised and returned to free access.[25]

Maralinga Tjarutja Council

The Maralinga Tjarutja Council is an incorporated body constituted by the traditional Yalata and Maralinga owners to administer the lands granted to them under the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984 (SA).[26] The head office is in Ceduna.

The Maralinga Tjarutja and the Pila Nguru (or

enclave
within the council area.

The land surveyed and known as Section 400, 120 km2 (46 sq mi) within the Taranaki Plumes,[27] was returned to Traditional Ownership in 2007. This land includes the area of land occupied by the Maralinga Township and the areas in which atomic tests were carried out by the British and Australian governments.

The final part of the 1,782 km2 (688 sq mi) former nuclear test site was returned in 2014.[28]

Documentary film

elders "reveal a perspective of deep time and an understanding of place that generates respect for the sacredness of both", their ancestors having lived in the area for millennia.[34] Despite the callous disregard for their occupation of the land shown by the British and Australians involved in the testing, the people have continued to fight for their rights to look after the contaminated land.[35]

The film, which was produced by

AACTA Award for Best Direction in Nonfiction Television and the Silver Award for Documentary (Human Rights) at the 2021 New York Festivals TV & Film Awards.[36][37]

See also

Notes

Citations

  1. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (28 June 2022). "Maralinga Tjarutja (Local Government Area)". Australian Census 2021 QuickStats. Retrieved 28 June 2022. Edit this at Wikidata
  2. ^ GoSA.
  3. ^ School Context Statement 2015, p. 11.
  4. ^ a b Mazel 2006, p. 161.
  5. ^ Mazel 2006, p. 169.
  6. ^ a b Palmer 1990, p. 172.
  7. ^ Palmer 1990, p. 173.
  8. ^ Thurnwald 1951, pp. 385–386.
  9. ^ Berndt 1974, p. 6.
  10. ^ Hercus 1999, p. 3.
  11. ^ a b Reece 2007, pp. 79–80.
  12. ^ a b c Mazel 2006, p. 162.
  13. ^ Palmer 1990, p. 181.
  14. ^ a b Palmer 1990, pp. 172–173.
  15. ^ Cross 2005, p. 83.
  16. ^ Cross 2005, p. 87.
  17. ^ Mazel 2006, pp. 167–168.
  18. ^ Palmer 1990, pp. 172–175–176.
  19. ^ "Minister backs Maralinga clean-up". The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 March 2003. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  20. ^ "Maralinga". Australian Nuclear and Uranium Sites. 23 July 2011. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  21. ^ Ladd, Mike (23 March 2020). "The lesser known history of the Maralinga nuclear tests - and what it's like to stand at ground zero". ABC News (Radio National). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  22. ^ ABC News 2003.
  23. ^ The Age 2004.
  24. ^ "Maralinga hand-over prompts celebration". The Age. 25 August 2004. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  25. Australian Government Department of Defence
    . 3 June 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
  26. ^ Maralinga Tjarutja 1984.
  27. ^ Mazel 2006, p. 175.
  28. ^ Sydney Morning Herald 2014.
  29. IMDb Edit this at Wikidata
  30. ^ Mathieson, Craig (24 June 2020). "You won't be bored watching Operation Buffalo but you may be confused". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  31. ^ "When the dust settles, culture remains: Maralinga Tjarutja". indigenous.gov.au. Australian Government. 22 May 2020. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  32. ^ "Maralinga Tjarutja". ABC iview. 6 March 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  33. ^ Campbell, Mel (11 June 2020). "TV Review: Maralinga Tjarutja paints a full picture". screenhub Australia. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  34. ^ Broderick, Mick (4 June 2020). "Sixty years on, two TV programs revisit Australia's nuclear history at Maralinga". The Conversation. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  35. ^ Marsh, Walter (22 May 2020). "The story of Maralinga is much more than a period drama". The Adelaide Review. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  36. ^ "About: Staff: Darren Dale: Managing Director /Producer". Blackfella Films. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  37. ^ Knox, David (16 October 2021). "Aussies win at New York Festivals TV & Film Awards". TV Tonight. Retrieved 17 November 2021.

Sources

Further reading

External links

26°29′25″S 132°00′28″E / 26.4902777778°S 132.007777778°E / -26.4902777778; 132.007777778

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