Tjuma

Tjuma: Stories from the Western Desert

by Amee Glass and Dorothy Newberry

This book contains some of the legends of the Aboriginal peoples of the Western Desert areas around the Warburton Ranges in Western Australia and extending into the Northern Territory and South Australia.

"There are many, many stories," said Tommy Simms, chairman of the Warburton Council. "they should all be in a book." However, only seven have been included in this volume.

Stories of this nature belong, of course, to the people as a whole and no one person can be regarded as being the author of any particular story, All of these stories were written in the Ngaanyatjarra language by Nancy Fox, Gerald Porter and Douglas Robinson. Mrs Fox used the oral version of the stories as told by various others of her kinsfolk as a basis for her writing.