Nicolas Rothwell; 16/8/08
For millennia, the deep, inhospitable heart of the Simpson Desert was a human landscape: a few hundred members of the Wangkanguru tribal group maintained a fragile presence there, amid the tall, straight sand dunes, the salt lakes and the claypans. They moved constantly between its mirages and red horizons, tracing their way along a network of shallow wells, refining their elaborate songs and stories, perfecting a material culture austere and full of grace. Then, about 100years ago, they left abruptly, expelled by savage drought; lured, too, by the food and water supplies of the new cattle stations around the Simpson’s creek-lined fringe. After their departure, few people ventured far into the desert: a handful of explorers, an incautious stockman or two. Silence filled the dune fields. The Wangkanguru and their world, and all their exquisite adaptations to the extremes of that arid zone, were forgotten until recently. It is only in the past few years that the network of their mikiris or wells has gradually and painstakingly been rediscovered by scientists and adventure-minded surveyors working with the last desert-born witnesses, or with the sparse clues they left.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24129613-5013571,00.html
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, History