Pukatja

History

Ernabella was a pastoral lease before it was established as a Presbyterian mission station for Aboriginal people in 1937, driven by medical doctor and Aboriginal rights campaigner Charles Duguid (then president of the Aborigines Protection League) and supported by the South Australian government. Ernestine Hill, after travelling in the area in the 1930s, wrote that colonisation only began there when the collection of dingo scalps (to help protect the sheep) by "doggers" started. Relationships of various types developed between the doggers and the local people, with the Aboriginal people's superior skills used to hunt collect the scalps, for which they were paid in rations, clothing and other goods. Some doggers cohabited with the local women, and sometimes groups of Anangu travelled with the doggers or set themselves up as doggers in their own right. There was a number of pastoral leases on the edge of the Western Desert, established from the 1880s, but development was marginal in the Musgrave Ranges area. Farming in these arid lands was labour-intensive, and an interdependence between the pastoralists and Aboriginal people developed. On a trip to Ernabella in 1935, Duguid noticed discrimination and heard reports of abuse of Aboriginal men's labour and the sexual abuse of women. He advocated the establishment of a mission "to act as a buffer between the Aborigines and the encroaching white settlers". In 1936 he persuaded the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to purchase the Ernabella lease, an area of , Bill Edwards (1958–1972), John Bennett (25 years overseeing the sheep enterprise), and Deaconess Winifred Hilliard coordinated the Ernabella Craft centre (now Ernabella Arts) from 1954 to 1974 and continued to work for Ernabella Arts until 1986. There was…

Geography

Pukatja is in the eastern Musgrave Ranges, west of the Stuart Highway, about south of the Northern Territory border, about south-west of Alice Springs and north of Umuwa, the major administrative centre within the APY Lands. It is about by road from Adelaide. The community sits at an elevation of about . The area is prone to earthquakes, one of few areas of Australia to have experienced multiple large earthquakes in recorded history. In 2012 and 2013, the town experienced a 5.7 magnitude earthquake, classified as "moderate" on the Richter scale and the country's two largest earthquakes in those years.

Most-observed species

• Rusty Crevice-dragon

  Ctenophorus rufescens (Stirling & Zietz, 1893) · Squamata
  12
• Samphire Slender Bluetongue

  Cyclodomorphus melanops (Stirling & Zietz, 1893) · Squamata
  9
• Bynoe's Gecko

  Heteronotia binoei (Gray, 1845) · Squamata
  6
• White-plumed Honeyeater

  Ptilotula penicillata (Gould, 1837) · Aves
  6
• Southern Sandslider

  Lerista labialis Storr, 1971 · Squamata
  5
• Australian scalyfoot

  Delma australis Kluge, 1974 · Squamata
  5
• Long-nosed Water Dragon

  Gowidon longirostris (Boulenger, 1883) · Squamata
  5
• Eucalyptus camaldulensis Denham

  Eucalyptus camaldulensis Denham · Magnoliopsida
  4

Most recent

• M 4.2 — 2017-07-15
  138 km SE of Yulara, Australia
• M 5.3 — 2013-06-09
  139 km SE of Yulara, Australia
• M 5.3 — 2012-03-23
  140 km SE of Yulara, Australia
• M 4.3 — 2012-03-16
  133 km SE of Yulara, Australia
• M 4.5 — 2005-03-13
  120 km SSE of Yulara, Australia
• M 2.8 — 2004-09-02
  170 km SSE of Yulara, Australia