The interwoven histories of Mount Liebig and Papunya-Luritja
The interwoven histories of Mount Liebig and Papunya-Luritja
Experiments in Self-Determination
- Author(s): Holcombe, Sarah
- Secondary Author(s): Peterson, Nicolas, Myers, Fred
- Published: 2016
- Publisher: ANU Press
- ISBN: 9781925022902
Abstract: Mount Liebig, known by Anangu as Amunturrngu and referred to by the regional shire as Watiyawanu, is part of the regional constellation of Pintupi-Luritja settlements that also includes Haasts Bluff, Papunya and at least 16 outstations, the majority of which are still inhabited.1 The 2011 census recorded Mount Liebig with a population of 156 people,2 while the Mount Liebig and Outstations Quickstats showed a slightly higher population of 184 people.3 Note that both of these figures also include non-Indigenous people. Mount Liebig—though now regarded as a ‘state suburb’ for the purposes of the census—itself began as an outstation. This chapter will trace the emergence of this place as it became the focus of both Pintupi-Luritja sentiment and respite from the earlier days of Haasts Bluff and the later coercive assimilationist vision of Papunya. That its relatively informal and incremental development into a substantial settlement has been led by Anangu, rather than the state, also has implications for the ways in which the place has emerged as a community, rather than merely a settlement. Unlike Papunya, which has been described as ‘mixed up’, Mount Liebig has an internal coherence that was led by succession processes and subsequent re-territorialisation. The reconfiguring of people at this place has been enabled by the new Indigenous language of Pintupi-Luritja; residents who chose to remain after the 1980s actively identified with this new language, referred to by linguists as a communilect. By foregrounding endogenous political processes, this essay conceptualises self-determination as a process in relation to other Aboriginal people as well as in relation to the State. The emergence of the Luritja language in this region, and its consolidation at Mount Liebig and surrounding outstations, was an expression of the need to regroup and reformulate a local identity after unprecedented historical interventions.
- Urls: https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p331981/pdf/book.pdf
- Publisher Location: Canberra