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Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows a Pintupi woman striding out in desert country in Western Australia and then cuts to black-and-white photographs of young Pintupi women and children in the 1960s, when they were living a traditional way of life. The clip includes narration from Jessie Bartlett, who describes the first contact her three grandmothers, who are the women in the photographs, had with non-Indigenous people. The women describe in voice-over and in their language this first contact, and Bartlett indicates that the photographs make her proud of her 'Nanas’. The clip includes subtitles.

Educational value points

• The photographs show that in the 1960s some Pintupi people were still living in the desert in WA. Bartlett’s grandmothers belonged to a group that followed a way of life based on hunting and gathering. They moved seasonally between camps as food supplies dictated and this mobility meant that possessions were kept to a minimum. Prior to European settlement there were about 700 different Indigenous cultural groups who each had their own country, and who followed this way of living.

• The clip provides an account of first contact between three Pintupi women and non-Indigenous people in the 1960s. The Pintupi people were among the last Indigenous Australians to make contact with Europeans, the most recent group emerging in 1984, when nine Pintupi people came in from the desert 800 km west of Alice Springs, Northern Territory. The Pintupi people have since played a significant role in the development of contemporary Indigenous Australian art and have achieved international acclaim for their work.

• The clip subverts the view of Pintupi people as objects of study by juxtaposing the photographs of them with the voices of Bartlett and her grandmothers. This gives the images a humanity often absent from anthropological discourse and enables the women to be seen as autonomous individuals. The photographs may have been taken by anthropologist Donald Thompson, who led the Bindibu Expedition, a series of three field trips between 1957 and 1965, to study first-hand the Pintupi’s hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The photographs taken as part of Thomson’s investigation often position the Pintupi as objects of study and as other.

• The photographs depict Pintupi people in their country (homeland), which covers the area west of Lake MacDonald and Lake Mackay in WA. From the 1940s the Government began to move Pintupi people off their land and into settlements at Papunya in NT and Balgo in WA, where they had to adapt to a different and largely sedentary lifestyle. In the 1980s Pintupi people started moving back to their country, setting up communities at Walungurru (Kintore), NT, and at Kiwirrkurra and Puntutjarrpa (Jupiter Well), WA.

• In Indigenous Australian communities it is the responsibility of Elders, such as Bartlett’s grandmothers, to pass on knowledge or lore about their country to the younger generation. The removal of Indigenous Australians from their land and the legacy of the Stolen Generations (the forced removal of Indigenous Australian children from their families, communities and country until 1970) has meant that many young Indigenous Australians may not have had the opportunity to learn about their country.

• The women speak in Pintupi, a Western Desert language – more than 700 different Indigenous languages and dialects were spoken in Australia at the time of European settlement; today there are less than 250 still in use. Until the 1960s Indigenous Australians were often prevented from speaking their own languages, which meant that these languages were not passed on to the next generation. Most of the surviving languages are no longer spoken as first languages; however, some are now taught at school in a number of Indigenous Australian communities.

This clip starts approximately 8 minutes into the documentary.

Nana is walking across the salt plain.
Granddaughter The first time my Nana saw a white person was when they were young women living in the desert. The white people were trying to find the last of the Pintupi who were still living a traditional life. These photos of my nanas were taken in the early ‘60s.
We see a series of old photographs.
Nana (Translation) Some white fellas came here. We saw them come across the plain in cars. They came in slowly. We hid at the soakage. But they came and found us there. It was good without white people but they gave us food. They said ‘Come to the water.’ We went to a place called Lappi Lappi and they took photos of us.
Granddaughter They were all moved out of the desert and into the towns. I love these photos. They make me realise how amazing my Nanas are. When I look at them, I want to learn more about their life out bush.