Culture
Anangu life revolves around the Tjukurpa (sometimes wrongly referred to as the Dreamtime). To the Aboriginal people, this is the ancestral period of when the world was being formed.
At Uluru, Mala (hare wallaby), Kuniya (woma python) and Liru (poisonous snake) are considered to be very important ancestors to the region.
- The Mala Tjukurpa involves three groups of Mala people who travel from the north to reach Uluru. Two groups then flee south and south-east to sites in South Australia.
- Kuniya Tjukurpa tells of the travels of the Woma Python from hundreds of kilometres east of Uluru. The Woma Python lived in the rocks at Uluru where she fought the Liri, the poisonous snakes.
These stories and many others have been passed down through thousands of years from generation to generation. The elder people recount, maintain and pass on this knowledge through stories, behaviour, rituals, ceremonies, songs, dances and art. Tjukurpa is therefore the basis of all Anangu knowledge and connects everything in life.
