Thoughts on the law of the land: the persistence of Aboriginal law in Australia

Abstract

Warlpiri people have lived in their homelands for countless generations.1 Western Europeans began to intrude into these places only a century ago. Since that first contact, kardiya2 have shot, poisoned, forcibly relocated, and enslaved yapa.3 They have imposed foreign ideas upon yapa, and despised yapa ways of being—ceremonies, language, relationships, connection to country, cosmology, and law (Reynolds 1987, 1989). Some Warlpiri call this ngurrakurlu (Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu et al. 2008). It is the Warlpiri way of being, and order of things. Show more