Bagu

Bagu belongs to the country of the Ngarinyin, an Aboriginal people of Western Australia’s Kimberley region. Their homeland extends through the Isdell Valley and along the northern Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges, across the upper Chapman and Wood rivers and toward neighboring ranges. This is plateau, wooded gorge and rocky watershed country, with waterholes and seasonal streams creating the routes between camping places.

Ngarinyin is one of three languages in the Worrorran family, and its speakers share law and Dreaming traditions with the Wunambal and Worrorra peoples. Wanjina paintings and Wunggurr creator traditions link clans to particular country. About forty local groups, each with its own land and moiety classification, composed the wider society. Kinship guided marriage, land use, ceremony and responsibilities for rock art and waterholes.

Before European settlement, Ngarinyin groups moved southward into territory associated with the Punaba. They travelled in response to water, game and seasonal plants, while burning and harvesting maintained the land. European occupation later disrupted many of these relationships, but Bagu remained part of a cultural landscape defined by language, law and named places rather than by a town. Country itself carried history through paintings, stories and remembered routes.