Where is Arrernte & Luritja Country?
The Luritja lands include areas to the west and south of Alice Springs, extending around the edge of Arrernte country.
The area surrounding Papunya, including Mount Liebig is often referred to as Papunya Luritja, both in land and language, while areas to the south-east around Finke and Maryvale are often referred to as Titjikala Luritja (Maryvale is the name of the cattle station on Titjikala land).
The area around Ulpanyali and Watarrka National Park (Kings Canyon) is also referred to as Luritja country and the dialect of Luritja spoken there is referred to as Southern Luritja (It's identical to Titjikala Luritja).
The variety of Luritja spoken at Kintore is often referred to as Pintupi/Luritja.
According to research, studies of Astronomical knowledge and symbolism in Australian Aboriginal Rock art was able to show that Indigenous Australians had a solid understanding of the astronomical realities of our planet and its place in the solar system far back into pre history Australian Archaeology Association.
Arrernte & Luritja Astronomy
Maegraith (1932) collected Arrernte and Luritja astronomical knowledge during the expedition of the Board of Anthropology of the University of Adelaide in August of 1929.
Her informants were Arrernte and Luritja male elders from the town of Ntaria (Hermannsburg), near the border of Arrernte and Luritja country.
She interviewed each of the men separately between 8:00 and 11:00 pm, each time with a different interpreter, and only included information in the paper that were common to all of the accounts. Because of this, summer constellations (December-March), such as Orion and Taurus, were not included.
According to Maegraith (1932), the Arrernte and Luritja partition the night sky into two equal hemispheres, or "camps", one on the western side and the other on the eastern side of the Milky Way. The eastern hemisphere belongs to the Arrernte and the western half to the Luritja, while stars within the Milky Way incorporate both groups (see also Strehlow (1907) for a description of Arrernte and Luritja astronomical traditions).
Celestial names and stories are accounted to the various stars and celestial objects, with many stars serving as mnemonic devices or incorporated into class relationships and marriage classes. The Arrernte and Luritja distinguished stellar colours over stellar magnitude and did not generally apply a "connect-the-dots" approach to identifying constellations as did the Greeks, instead attributing single stars or clusters to individual objects or persons in particular songs or stories (Maegraith, 1932).
Much of this sky-knowledge is restricted to initiated males, although the women have their own knowledge of the stars (Maegraith claims that the boys are told the "truth" about the stars when they are initiated). These groups acknowledged the motions of the stars, both over the night and over the year, also noting circumpolar stars (stars that never set below the horizon).
While the papers by Maegraith and Strehlow reveal a treasuretrove of information regarding the sky-knowledge of Arrernte and Luritja cultures (as of 1932), it reveals little information about the role of meteors and meteorites. However, a review of the literature shows that meteors and meteorites played a significant role in the Dreamings and cosmology of these groups.
Exerpts from the Australian Archeology Association Blog
Images @ Eminpee Fotography
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