Kunjarra Paper Histories
Kunjarra is a Warumungu women's dreaming place populated by their female ancestors, the Mungamunga women. Mungamunga women are ngurrmamarla, ‘eternally resident,’ in the land. They continue to travel through Warumungu country leaving food, helping people when they get sick or causing disturbances if people forget their responsibilities towards their country. Women gather at Kunjarra to participate in ceremonies, teach younger generations and pass on women's business for that country.
Kunjarra is known to non-Aboriginal people as the ‘Devil's Pebbles,’ a smaller version of the ‘Devil's Marbles’ which lay to the south of town. In 1980 the Tennant Creek Tourist Association moved one of the pebbles from its home at Kunjarra to Peko Park in town. Warumungu traditional owners were outraged over the removal of the boulder. In the ensuing weeks, both children and old people became sick due to the removal. Over the next year, Warumungu people, the Central Land Council and the Sacred Sites Authority worked with the Tourist Association to have the boulder returned to Kunjarra. On 19 July 1981 the boulder was finally returned, but there was more trouble on the horizon.
In January 1989, miners attempted to enter Kunjarra without permission of the traditional owners. The Western Australian mining company, Frankenfeld Quarries, moved their bulldozers onto the site at night hoping to avoid any confrontations. What the miners didn't expect was the reaction by local Warumungu women to the encroachment on their land. Warumungu women set up camp, danced and sang the travels of the Mungamunga in protest. The women stayed there nearly two months as the miners and the Northern Territory government attempted to sidestep their rights to register Kunjarra as a sacred site with the Aboriginal Sacred Sites Protection Authority. The miners eventually retreated. Kunjarra was registered with the Sacred Sites Authority in 1990 and in 1996 Kunjarra was returned to Warumungu traditional owners as part of the Warumungu Land Claim to be held as N.T. Freehold land under direction of the Partta Land Aboriginal Corporation made up of traditional owners.
In 2002, Warumungu women solidified their claims over Kunjarra. On the western side of the highway, just north of town, a billboard announces: ‘Kunjarra the pebbles is an important women's cultural site for the Warumungu women of this country.’ On the left side of the billboard, a painting by L. Dixon Nakkamarra depicts the boulders amidst a yellow, red, and orange sunset. Warumungu women dance next to the boulders with dancing sticks in their hands, ocher-painted bodies, and white headbands wrapped around their heads. The sign's text connects land, people, and ancestors.
Kunjarra is a Warumungu women's dreaming with cultural significance of the area that is sacred to the Warumungu women, and ceremony and dance are still practiced here today. The Mungarr Mungarr (old people in spiritual being) are the ancient holders of the yowulyu (song) and today the knowledge is still preserved and the Mungarr Mungarr still continue to occupy the land in spiritual form as our ancestors have for thousands of years.
Just below and next to this sign, a small, bright yellow, rectangular sign gives another definition of Kunjarra: ABORIGINAL FREEHOLD LAND. A few kilometers down the adjacent dirt road, is another sign. This one reads simply Kunjarra. These signs reclaim Kunjarra as a Warumungu territory.
Today Warumungu women continue to perform their yawulyu (ceremonies) at Kunjarra. They interact with their Mungamunga ancestors through ceremonial songs and dances that ensure the continuation of the land and their relations between kin, country and ancestors.