NPY Women’s Council's (NPYWC) Law and Culture meetings

NPYWC host Law and Culture camps or meetings. At these meetings Anangu and Yarnangu women come together to celebrate and consolidate their traditional cultural practices and identity.

These women-only gatherings have been running since 1983. They are held on Country in the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) region. They allow women to connect with elements of their life and culture that are distinct from that of their men. As well as strengthen their ties with other women from the NPY region, their land and important sites.

“With the passing of many senior women who hold important cultural knowledge, law and culture gatherings are now, more than ever, vital to the cultural maintenance for the women of the NPY Lands.”
– NPY Women’s Council, Annual Report 2016-2017.¹NPY Women’s Council, Annual Report 2016-2017, (NPY Women’s Council, 2018), 9, [link]

According to NPYWC, the purpose of Law and Culture gatherings is to:

• facilitate the exchange of traditional knowledge and ceremonial cycles
• perform dances and ceremonial cycles to confirm the importance and power of women’s law
• promote the position and status of senior Aboriginal women from the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara communities
• expose younger women and women dispossessed of their culture to particular practices to gain an understanding of their heritage
• allow relatives from NPY communities who have not seen each other for a long time to reunite.

Read more about NPYWC and their Law and Culture gatherings.