Iltur

Coordinates: 27°32′S 130°33′E / 27.533°S 130.550°E Iltur is a remote Pitjantjatjara homeland in the Great Victoria Desert of South Australia. It is also known as Coffin Hill after the rocky outcrop where it is located, and the traditional country surrounding it is known in Pitjantjatjara as Ilturnga. It is located at the southern end of the Birksgate Range, and is one of the most southerly locations on the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands. It was visited by the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition in 1981, led by the explorer David Lindsay.^[1]

Many of the families who had lived in this region historically were forced to leave the area due to nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga. They were moved northward to Fregon and southward to Yalata.^[2] Not all of them left, however, and some still living around Iltur reported that they were affected by the fallout of the tests.^[3] In 1976, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs offered AU$10,000 for the establishment of an outstation community at Iltur. An outstation was built, but is not always occupied.^[4]

References

1. David Lindsay; Thomas Elder; L. A. Wells (1893). Journal of the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition, 1891–2. Adelaide: C. E. Bristow, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. p. 51.
2. C. Cocks (June 1978). "Report of the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Working Party of South Australia" (PDF). Government of South Australia. p. 20.
3. Douglas Holdstock, Frank Barnaby, ed. (2003). The British Nuclear Weapons Programme 1952 - 2002. Routledge. pp. 80–83. ISBN 9780714653822.
4. W. H. Edwards (December 1992). "Patterns of Aboriginal residence in the north-west of South Australia" (PDF). Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia (Anthropological Society of South Australia) 30 (1): 1506–1507. Retrieved 20 April 2013.