Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory

Haasts Bluff is a settlement of Luritja and Pintupi Aborigines, which is now called by them Ikuntji. It is located about 230 kilometers west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory in the MacDonnell Ranges.

History

1872 Ernest Giles came to this region and named it after the geologist Julius von Haast. 1905 there was a cattle ranch and 1941 this settlement was an Aboriginal reserve.

Artist colony

As the Australians did in the late 1950s to assimilate the Aborigines, Aboriginal cultural area of ​​Western dessert were deported to Papunya. Different tribes were brought together in this place. Thus, there were problems in coexistence, this led in the early 1970s that many Aborigines returned to their ancestral land. The Pintupi and Luritja went to Haasts Bluff. There, in 1991, the Ikuntji Women's Centre, one of Aboriginal women-owned artists' colony, currently fifteen artists working in the founded. Among the most important artists from Haasts Bluff include Marlee Naparrula, Narputta Nangala, Daisy Napaltjarri Jugadai, Alice Nampitjinpa, Eunice Napanangka Jack, Mitjili Naparrula and Long Tom Tjapanangka.