The Upurli Upurli Nguratja claimants are members of the ‘Western Desert Cultural Bloc’. They are connected to each other and the claim area through the tjukurrpa (“the Dreaming” or “the Law”).

Upurli Upurli Nguratja means ‘belonging to the country of the tadpoles’ and relates to a large rockhole near Cundeelee that is central to the cultural history of the claim area.

Many of the claimants have spent at least part of their lives living within the claim area, mostly at Cundeelee and Coonana, or were born there. They include the descendants of Aboriginal people who occupied the claim area early last century, as well as the descendants of Aboriginal people from country to the north and the east who began settling within it between the 1920s and the 1950s.

Events such as the establishment of the Indian Pacific Railway and Cundeelee Mission (between the 1910s and 1950s) brought people from the surrounding desert country.

Many claimants are descendants of people displaced by the nuclear tests conducted at Maralinga in South Australia in the 1950s- the Anangu (Spinifex) people. They have all come to hold native title rights in the area along with descendants of the original inhabitants.  

There are 49 apical ancestors listed in the claim, making it one of the largest in the Central Desert region.