Arrernte people

"Aranda" is a simplified, Australian English approximation of the traditional pronunciation of the name of Arrernte . The ancestors of the Arrernte all spoke one or more of the many Arrernte dialects in the Arrernte group of languages. Today several are completely or nearly extinct, but some (especially Eastern or Central Arrernte) are widely spoken and taught in schools. The Arrernte also had a highly developed sign language. ==Culture==

Arrernte religion and cultural life were documented thoroughly from the late nineteenth century by the Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow, the seminal Australian anthropologists Walter Baldwin Spencer and Francis Gillen and later by T. G. H. Strehlow. The Arrernte men worked with Strehlow to document their songs and ceremonies between 1932 and 1974. Arrernte oral history discusses the region of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) and its environs being shaped by primordial caterpillar-beings known as Ayepe-arenye (Hyles livornicoides), Ntyarlke (Hippotion celerio), and Utnerrengatye (Coenotes eremophilae) which were ancestral to the Arrernte people. The eastern MacDonnell Ranges was formed by the Ayepe-arenye, while the western portion of the ranges was formed by Ntyarlke. ==Country==

The Arrernte's lands, according to Norman Tindale's estimate, encompass some . Of their overall territory he wrote that they were: At Mount Gosse, Mount Zeil, and Mount Heughlin; on the Finke River to Idracowra, Blood Creek, Macumba, Mount Dare, and Andado, and some distance east into the sandhills of the Arunta (Simpson) Desert; northeast to Intea on the lower Hale River, thence north to Ilbala on Plenty River; west to Inilja and Hart Range, Mount Swan, Gillen Creek, Connor Well, and Narwietooma; in Central MacDonnell, James, and Ooraminna Ranges. ==Sub-divisions==

The name Arrernte refers to the following distinct groups (or "mobs"): • Central Arrernte, from the township of Alice Springs and its immediate surrounds. • Eastern Arrernte, from the Arrernte lands east of Alice Springs. • Western Arrarnta, from the Arrernte lands west of Alice Springs, out to Mutitjulu and King's Canyon. ==See also==

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