Luritja

West and south-west of Alice Springs, in the ranges and desert beyond the country of the Western Arrernte, live the Luritja, Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory whose communities include Papunya, Haasts Bluff and Kintore. Their speech is a variety of the Western Desert language, and their artists, above all those of Papunya, are among the best known in Aboriginal Australia.

Around 1900 the people immediately west of the Western Arrernte called themselves Kukatja, a name some link to pride in being meat-eaters. Their Arrernte neighbours called them Loritja or Aluritja, a word thought to come from an Arrernte term for "foreigner" and one that early writers noted carried a disparaging sense. Over time younger generations adopted Luritja as their own name, and many now say Luritja or Kukatja-Luritja when speaking of their ancestry. They are distinct from other peoples called Kukatja or Kokatha elsewhere in Australia.

Norman Tindale put their lands at about 10,300 square miles, west of the Gosse Range and Palm Valley on the southern MacDonnell Ranges, south to Tempe Downs and south-west towards Lake Amadeus and the George Gill Range around Kings Canyon. People of the border country with the Arrernte often speak both languages and share ancestors and law.

Luritja is a dialect of the Western Desert language. Papunya Luritja, spoken from Papunya west through Mount Liebig, is close to the language of the Pintupi and has probably absorbed influences from Arrernte and Warlpiri; the variety at Kintore is often called Pintupi-Luritja. Southern or Titjikala Luritja, spoken around Titjikala and Watarrka (Kings Canyon), probably derives mostly from Pitjantjatjara, and southern Luritja groups also show influence from Yankunytjatjara.

The Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow made the first sustained study of the Kukatja and their Arrernte neighbours, published in German in six large volumes between 1907 and 1920. In 1929 the anthropologist Géza Róheim spent eight months among the Luritja and other central Australian peoples, in the first attempt to test Sigmund Freud's theories about "primitive" society against fieldwork in Australia.

In 1974 the Luritja founded the Luritja Land Association, the first Aboriginal land rights organisation in Central Australia. In December 1993 about 4,750 square kilometres, including the Tempe Downs and Middleton Ponds pastoral leases, were bought for the traditional owners, and more than 350 Luritja people lived there or planned to. Pintupi-Luritja communities founded after colonisation, among them some sixteen outstations, were in many cases still inhabited in 2011.

Art is central to the Luritja economy. Papunya Tula, whose artists live mostly at Papunya and Kintore, is world-renowned, and painters in Alice Springs work through the Tangentyere Artists collective. The Luritja artist and activist Harold Thomas designed the Aboriginal flag.

Our maps from 1600 to 1815 (1600, 1650, 1700, 1715, 1783, 1800 and 1815) draw an approximate Luritja territory west of Arrernte country, near the Yankunytjatjara, Pitjantjatjara, Pintupi and Anmatyerre. See also Aboriginal Australians and Australia.