Ngalia (Western Desert)

See also: Mantjintjarra Ngalia

Not to be confused with Ngalia (Northern Territory).

The Ngalia, or Ngalea, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Western Desert cultural bloc resident in land extending from Western Australia to the west of South Australia.^[1] They are not to be confused with the Ngalia of the Northern Territory.^[2]

Ngalia
People
Ethnicity	Aboriginal Australian
Location	Western Australia South Australia

Country

The Ngalia's traditional lands are around the salt lake areas, such as the Serpentine Lakes in the Great Victoria Desert, northwest of Ooldea, South Australia, in what is now the Mamungari Conservation Park. Norman Tindale estimated their tribal lands as covering an extension of some 15,000 square miles (39,000 km²).^[3]

Language

The Ngalia language, also known as Ooldean, is a dialect of the Western Desert language.^[1]

Alternative names

• Nangga ('men' in the sense that they had undergone circumcision)
• Nanggaranggu
• Nanggarangku (Pitjantjatjara exonym bearing the meaning of 'hostile men')
• Ngalia, Ngalija
• Ngaliawongga
• Tangara
• Willoorara ((people of the) 'west')
• Windakan (applied to their language, and also to the Wirangu)

Source: Tindale 1974, p. 215

Notable people

• Kado Muir, artist, anthropologist and politician