Ian Dunlop

A man of the Western Desert makes a spear thrower (or Woomera), he cuts the wood from a mulga tree and shapes it with a metal axe. He prepares spinifex gum, flakes a stone blade, and sticks the stone (for use as a knife and scraper) to the spear-thrower handle with the gum. He binds a barb to the other end of the spear-thrower with Kangaroo leg sinew.

A kangaroo has been shot. A man of the Western Desert guts it using the stone in the handle of his spear-thrower. After singeing off the fur in a blazing fire. The kangaroo is cooked in a trench covered with glowing ashes and soil. The cooked kangaroo is cut up according to custom.

In two separate sequences - A man of the Western desert demonstrates spear making, he uses a mulga tree for the shaft and shapes it with a metal axe. His sons play at spear fighting with toy spears.

A man of the Western Desert collects gum from spinifex. His wife separates the gum from spinifex particles. He then melts the gum into a usable state. He then goes to a quartzite quarry and collects a large core; back at camp he knaps this to obtain a stone knife, a scraper for his spear-thrower, and a hand chopper. Using his spinifex gum he puts a gum handle on the knife and then sticks the scraper onto the handle of his spear-thrower, his previous...

Two days in the life of three families of the Western Desert who were camped together by a large clay pan. Good rain had fallen some months ago, the clay pan is largely covered with water, and game and vegetable food is relatively plentiful. Men hunt emus from behind a hide. An emu is speared. Later we see an emu cooked and eaten. Women collect and grind mulga seed, collect grubs from the trunk of a gum tree and cook them and collect the fruit of...

A man of the Western Desert cooks a kangaroo according to Western Desert custom and then divides it into its various cuts using stone and wooden tools. Children get water from a well in a rocky area using wooden dishes.

A general introduction to the series "People of the Australian Western Desert", shot in 1965 with Djagamara and his family at Badjar and Minma and his family at Tika Tika and Yalara, in the Gibson Desert area of the Western Desert.

In 1965 and 1967, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies sponsored film trips by the then Commonwealth Film Unit to the Western Desert region of Australia. The object of these trips was to film the daily life of nomadic Aboriginal people living in the Gibson Desert of Central Australia. Although this land is one of the most arid regions of Australia, the people who lived there regarded it as rich in resources. This longform film series is...

A nomadic family of the Western Desert moves from Yalara camp to Tika Tika camp a days walk away. On the way they gather fruit, grass seed, lizards and a rabbit eared bandicoot. After making camp and getting water from a deep well, they cook some of the food. This is an edited sequence shot over several days. The family consisted of a man, two wives and four children. They were in fact living at Warburton Mission at this time and were taken out to...

This is an archival record film of a circumcision ceremony at Yirrkala in 1972. On many occasions over the three weeks prior to the main ceremony the boys to be circumcised are sung over and beautifully painted with clan designs. As the final day approaches the paintings become ever more elaborate. No translation or documentation is included in this archival record.