Warumungu

The Warumungu, also spelt Warramunga, were an Aboriginal Australian people of the central Northern Territory, whose country centred on Tennant Creek, on the western edge of the Barkly Tableland. Permanent waterholes along the creek drew them together in drought years. Their language was a Pama-Nyungan tongue close to Warlpiri, and alongside spoken words the Warumungu maintained a highly developed sign language.

European explorers who first encountered them in the late nineteenth century described a flourishing people. The telegraph station, pastoral runs and later gold mines at Tennant Creek brought dispossession and frontier violence, and the Warumungu were progressively pushed from their ancestral grounds.