Untiri Pulka means large (pulka) clear open plain country (untiri), which is descriptive of a prominent biogeographical feature of the determination area.
The northern half of the determination area contains fertile Nullarbor woodlands, while a treeless plain lies across the determination area’s southern half.
The fertility of the Nullarbor woodlands area is created by a number of rockholes, nutritious vegetation, and substantial populations of large game and birds. In contrast, there are few waterholes and resources, including trees, in the area of the plain located in the south of the determination area.
Untiri Pulka people identify as ‘Spinifex People’, or Anangu tjuta pila nguru, which translates as the Aboriginal people (Anangu) many (tjuta) spinifex (pila) from (nguru), i.e. the Aboriginal people from many spinifex. This is a label that is used to denote those members of the Western Desert that have in common a social geography and traditional law and custom that is associated with the people inhabiting the determination area and the Pilki and Spinifex determination areas.
As such, most of the Untiri Pulka Claimants are also Spinifex and Pilki native title holders, who all acknowledge the traditional laws and observe the traditional customs associated with the Western Desert.
The oral history of the Untiri Pulka Claimants reveals that many of their forebears were born within or on the immediate northern fringes of the determination area, where the natural resources needed to sustain permanent physical habitation and occupation were located.
Some of the living members of the group had their first contact experiences on the margins of the determination area. Members and predecessors did not experience sustained contact with colonisers and their associated impacts until the mid 1950s, which resulted from: the grading of the Anne Beadell Highway by Len Beadell in 1956; atomic testing; and subsequent Defence and Mission patrols through the Determination Area into the northern margins of the Nullarbor Woodlands between 1956 and 1967.
These latter patrols led to a large number of Spinifex People moving west of the determination area to the Cundeelee Mission and subsequently the Coonana Aboriginal Community. This diaspora started reversing when, in the early 1980s,
Spinifex People initiated a return to country and walked out of Coonana to move to Double Pump, located in the determination area. A further move was made to Yakatunya, also in the determination area, until finally people moved again to establish the community of Tjuntjuntjara, located within the Spinifex determination area.
