Nangala was a young girl when her father Anatjari Tjampitjinpa and her mother Mamuriu Napaltjarri came in from the desert in 1963. One of the last groups to do so under the direction of Welfare Patrols lead by Jeremy Long. The patrol, with Nosepeg Tjupurrula and a Tjampitjinpa from Papunya, had been looking for them on the road i.e. the original road made by Len Beadel west into W.A. from Sandy Blight Junction. They met at “Mukala”. A t the time Nangala and her family were living on “bush mangari” i.e.damper made from seeds, and were getting scarce water from rockholes.
Nangala and her family travelled to Papunya by truck with the Welfare Patrol. This is well documented and photographs of Nangala and the group appear in “The Lizard Eaters”, a book by Douglas Lockwood.
Nangala trained as a healthcare worker and in 1984 was involved with the first contact of the last group to come out of the Gibson desert, they are her Tjapaltjarri uncles, her mother’s brothers. (Front page of the Centralian Advocate Friday, October 26th, 1984). Nangala now lives at Kiwirrkura. |
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