All around australia and overseas: Christianity and indigenous identities in central Australia 1988

This paper discusses the themes and practices of Christian performance at the Western Desert Aboriginal community of Warlungurru in 1988,¹ six years after the Pintupi return to their homelands (see Myers 1986; McMillan 1988; Nathan & Japanangka Leichleitner 1983) and the enthusiastic Christian revival-nightly Gospel singing, a ban on gambling-experienced in the first years of their return. My concern is with how a distinctively Lutheran focus in Pintupi Christianity (in opposition to competing Pentecostal orientations in Central Australia at that time) was grasped by some Pintupi as a structure organising relations between Indigenous people and others in the world, and how specialised knowledge constituted positions of prestige and authority. Thus, I explore certain convergences between prior Indigenous formulations of personhood and relatedness and the way in which Lutheran Christianity was articulated during this period.