Welcome to our Country

Anwerne Mparntwe-arenye tyerrtye mapele arrenhantherre welcome-ileme apmere anwerne-kenhe-werne. Anwerne ahentye-aneme arrantherre akaltye-irremele respectem-iletyeke apmere nhenhe.

We, the people who belong to Alice Springs, welcome you to our country. We hope you will learn about, and respect our country. We, the people who belong to Alice Springs.

Arrernte Dreaming

The Arrernte traditional owners of Mparntwe (Alice Springs) have been here since time immemorial. In the beginning, Altyerrenge, ancestral figures created the landscape and its features, as well as Arrernte Law. Arrernte people continue to live in Mparntwe, observe that law, look after the country and teach children the Arrernte language and the importance of culture.

According to the traditional owners, the landscape was shaped by caterpillars, wild dogs, travelling boys, two sisters, euros and other ancestral figures. It contains many sites of importance to its traditional owners. Anthwerrke (Emily Gap) is a very significant place where the caterpillar beings came together. Other important sites include Akeyulerre (Billy Goat Hill), Ntaripe (Heavitree Gap), Atnelkentyarliweke (Anzac Hill) and Alhekulyele (Mt. Gillen).

Some of the first Dreaming stories ever recorded were those of the Arrernte (pronounced 'Arunda') people of Central Australia. (“Alice Springs Its History & The People Who Made It” – Peter Donovan 1988.)

Aboriginal People and Alice Springs

The Central Arrernte people are the traditional owners of Alice Springs but since the town is the regional hub of Central Australia it attracts Aboriginal people from all over that region and well beyond. Speakers of Warlpiri, Warumungu, Kaytetye, Alyawarre, Luritja, Pintupi, Pitjantjatjara, Yangkunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Pertame, Eastern and Western Arrernte, as well as others from the Region, the NT and interstate either live here or visit regularly to use the town's services. Aboriginal residents live in the suburbs, on special purpose leases (or town camps) or further out at Amoonguna to the South and on the small family outstation communities on Aboriginal Lands in surrounding areas. Besides Standard English and the distinctive dialect of Aboriginal English there are many traditional languages still spoken by the residents of Alice Springs who identify as Indigenous Australians.

What it means to be Indigenous is expressed in a rich and very diverse cultural mosaic. There are local people still living very close to the ancient ways of the desert, struggling to maintain these ways in the face of the ever increasing pressures of modernisation. There are those who have achieved workable adaptations to those pressures respecting their Indigenous heritage while finding new ways to survive, cope and thrive in the contemporary Australian economy and society. Many are proud of a heritage which includes the culture and values of the Afghan cameleers, the pioneering of the cattle industry and the development of the town of Alice Springs alongside the ancient hunter gatherer traditions of the original people.

In order to understand the present situation here in Alice Springs it is necessary to know a little of the history of the Aboriginal people of Central Australia:

The traditional culture and economy of the desert Aboriginal people are probably as different as it is possible to be from the contemporary Australian culture and economy. The culture of the desert combined a very simple technology with an incredible level of skill in its use, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the landscape and its ecology, a profound and rich religious life tied to that landscape and the world's most complex kinship system. It is a monument to the human intellect and spirit and most likely the only culture that would have survived for so long here in one of the world's harshest and demanding natural environments. It is also at one end of the of the world's cultural spectrum. In almost every respect the culture brought by the European newcomers in the nineteenth century is at the opposite pole. They can't be more different on a world scale.

Australians are just now coming to terms with the fact that the frontier of settlement was a violent place. Aboriginal society could not organise resistance to colonisation in ways that Europeans recognised as warfare, as did Native Americans, Maoris and Africans, so their resistance was not recognised as defence of their country. The last officially sanctioned punitive expedition in response to the death of a white bushman, resulting in an official Aboriginal death toll of 31 (Aboriginal survivors claim a much higher figure) took place in Central Australia in 1928. It brought an end to the official violence of the Australian frontier at last, violence which began in Central Australia in the 1870's. This is not ancient, but living memory history and some of its effects are still with us. The people of the Centre endured the same policies of institutionalisation and enforced Assimilation as all other Indigenous Australians. Full citizenship rights were not extended to them until the late 1960's.

Aboriginal Centralians have had very little time to adapt to the new realities. Exploration of the region did not begin until the 1860's. There was not a significant European population here until well into the twentieth century. Aboriginal families were still coming out of the desert, coming into contact with White Australia for the first time as late as the 1960's, with the last family emerging from the Gibson Desert in 1984. The combination of extremes of cultural difference and resulting drastic enforced change over a short period of time has resulted in serious social and economic problems for Indigenous Australians here as much as anywhere else in Australia. Given the large Aboriginal population of the region and its concentration in Alice Springs some of those problems will be visible in our streets and are often the focus of dealt media attention.

What is not always visible is the work of many government and non-government organisations working in partnership in the Region to help Aboriginal citizens cope with and overcome the difficulties they face. Apart from the agencies of all tiers of government, Federal , Territory and Local, there are over 70 Aboriginal organisations, agencies and incorporated associations in our Region dealing with social, cultural and economic issues. Many of these organisations are pioneers in their field leading the nation and the world in Indigenous community management and development. Alice Springs is a proudly multicultural community with citizens from every corner of the world. At its core is the Indigenous community. Cultural harmony requires work. Alice Springs has much to teach the world in how that work should be done.

Recommended reading

• Site Seeing by D.Brooks/C. Ruff and J. Rhodes
• The Town Grew Up Dancing by Wenton Rubuntja and Jenny Green.
• A Town Like Mparntwe by David Brooks.

Albert Namatjira

Many remarkable and talented people have left lasting imprints on the town of Alice Springs, the most notable being Albert Namatjira. A famous Arrernte artist, he became well known through his watercolour paintings of the landscape, especially that of his homelands in the Western MacDonnell Ranges. His excellent choice of soft pastels and vibrant purple and blue hues depicted the landscape as it was never seen before.

Examples of his fabulous talent are on display in the Namatjira Gallery at the Araluen Arts Centre (access via site quick links). The display also features the works of Rex Battabee, Namatjira's mentor at Hermannsburg. The Centre is open 10:00am - 5:00pm seven days/week and only closed Christmas Day and Good Friday. Entry fee applies.

Numerous art galleries dealing in fine Aboriginal arts attest to the increasing national and international interest in the work of many Central Australian Aboriginal artists. Business ventures in tourism, television, radio and printing have created an outlet for Aboriginal people. In this way they are able to maintain their culture and language and to voice their views whilst generating opportunities for employment.

After Namatjira

Albert Namatjira used a European style of art to express a profound love for the beauty of his own country. This was a style that non-Aboriginal people could immediately appreciate. It did no stop with Namatjira. It has been developed further by a school of Aboriginal artists based at Hermannsburg.

In 1971 at the suggestion of a school teacher, Geoff Bardon, traditional designs were painted on the walls of Papunya School. This simple act inspired an explosion in the use of traditional design on non-traditional media throughout Central Australia. Traditional art is closely bound up with ceremony, ritual and spiritual relationship to land. Prior to the 1970's it was of interest to anthropologists and other academics only. With the beginnings of Papunya Tula Art it became accessible to the rest of the world.

Since the 70's Art and Craft Centres have mushroomed on communities throughout the Centre. Since then an impressive variety of art styles have been produced using an equally impressive variety of media. In the tradition of Battarbee and Bardon dedicated artists and teachers have passed their skills on to Aboriginal people who have responded with enthusiasm and pride giving the world and access to an ancient world of beauty and meaning in a delightfully new way.

Alice Springs has become the marketing hub for Central Australian Aboriginal Art. Paintings in acrylic on canvas, water colours, painted pottery and jewellery, batik, screen printed and hand painted clothing, wood carving, ornamented traditional artefacts and more can be found in the galleries of Alice Springs and the community Art Centres of Central Australia.