The Tjumalampatju: Our Stories
The Tjumalampatju database is an online community-based database. This means that Community members participate by placing names to faces on photos or adding stories to a particular image or event by either text, movie or audio.
Since 1981 Ngaanyatjarra Council has been collecting historical and cultural information ranging from Mission days in the 1930s to today. This information has been in the form of audio, visual and written material documenting life on the Lands. With the need to both preserve and provide access to this material the Tjumalamapatju: Our Stories website is now the digital cultural archive for the people of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands as well as a resource for historians, schools, researchers and others to see and use.
Ngaanyatjarra Council has the facility to scan negatives, photos, documents, audio and movies into digital format. The Council also has the capacity to house these forms of media as well as any artefacts/objects of any kind that may be returned. These collections are kept under library conditions so that these records are kept in a safe environment and for the safekeeping for future generations.
How do children learn Ngaanyatjarra way? They learn when Grandpop talks to them. Also they learn by watching—looking at Nanna making wirra [digging bowl] or making damper [bread made in the coals of a campfire]…they talk about the activities in Ngaanyatjarra, they copy each other, they play with the same things every day—they are learning.”
Beryl Jennings, a local Ngaanyatjarra elder
Shinkfield and Jennings, 2006
