Anmatyerre


The Anmatyerre are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory, who speak one of the Upper Arrernte languages.

Language

The Anmatyerre are said to speak dialects of Upper Arrernte, broken into the phonetically distinct Eastern Anmatyerr and Western Anmatyerr.

Country

In 1974 the traditional lands of the Anmatyerre people in N.B. Tindale's Aboriginal Tribes of Australia were described as covering an area of. He specifies its central features as encompassing the Forster Range, Mount Leichhardt, Coniston, Stuart Bluff Range to the east of West Bluff; the Hann and Reynolds Ranges ; the Burt Plain north of Rembrandt Rocks and Connor Well. Their eastern frontier went as far as Woodgreen. To the northeast, their borders lay around central Mount Stuart and Harper Springs.

People

Anmatyerre communities located within the region include Nturiya, Ti-Tree Pmara Jutunta, Willowra, Laramba and Alyuen. What is today known as the Anmatyerre region has significant overlap with Warlpiri, Arrernte and Alyawarr language communities. Many people come from two or three different language groups. The Utopia community, 250 km north east of Alice Springs, and set up in 1927, is partly on Alyawarre land, partly on land of the Anmatyerre.
As a specialist in Arandic culture and language T. G. H Strehlow also worked with Anmatyerr people throughout his career, recording much of their ceremonial traditions.

Alternative names