111581996705
Palatji (Palarji, Weld Springs, Canning Stock Route Well 9)
Palatji (Palarji, Weld Springs, Canning Stock Route Well 9) is part of Miriam’s family’s ngurra (home Country, camp), located at the southern end of Martu Country and within the Birriliburu Indigenous Protected Area. Miriam’s Grandfather and Grandmother would camp for lengthy periods at Palatji. When they saw Europeans drovers with their cattle, they used to run up the hill and hide.
The intersection of the Canning Stock Route with Palatji made this a site of early contact with Europeans for many Martu then living a pujiman life in the desert. Following the route’s construction, Martu encountered Europeans and other Martu working as cattle drovers as they would travel up and down the Stock Route from water source to water source. Increasingly, pujimanpa (desert dwellers) followed the route to newly established ration depots, mission and pastoral stations. They were drawn to the route in search of food, by a sense of curiosity, or by loneliness. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, most of the desert family groups had left the desert. Eventually, these factors combined with an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s to prompt the few remaining pujimanpa to move in from the desert.
