Kariyarra

Kariyarra country extends along the Pilbara coast around present-day Port Hedland and inland towards the Yule River. Its largest rivers, the Yule and Turner, are known as Kakurrka Muri and Kapankalanha. Both belong to the sacred geography of the Warlu, the ancestral water serpent. Kariyarra traditions also trace descent to the Minjiburu spirit people, linking identity and obligations to particular places.

Engravings on the limestone ridges around Port Hedland preserve another expression of this relationship with country. Made using shells and stone, they include images associated with hunting dugongs, turtles and fish. Their individual dates are uncertain, but they form part of an enduring tradition of transmitting knowledge through marked places. Land, coastal waters and ancestral narratives together sustained a locally distinctive order before colonial settlement reached the Pilbara.