Nepabunna

Nepabunna, also spelt Nipapanha, is a small community in the northern Flinders Ranges in north-eastern South Australia, about 600 kilometres (370 mi) north of Adelaide.

Nepabunna, also spelt Nipapanha, is a small community in the northern Flinders Ranges in north-eastern South Australia, about 600 kilometres (370 mi) north of Adelaide. It is located just west of the Gammon Ranges, and the traditional owners are the Adnyamathanha people.

The settlement was originally established as Nepabunna Mission in 1931, becoming the local government area (LGA) of Nepabunna Community Council with the establishment of a council in 1998. Iga Warta is a separate, independently run small cultural tourism enterprise within the LGA. The Nipabanha Community Aboriginal Corporation runs the Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) over land known as Nantawarrina, once a station for mixed livestock.

At the 2016 Australian census, Nepabunna had a population of 66. Access is via the main Copley to Balcanoona road.

The land upon which Nepabunna is situation lies within the traditional lands of the Adnyamathanha people.

The Adnyamathanha people were displaced from their traditional lands in the 1850s by pastoralists, no longer able to travel around their lands as before owing to the establishment of pastoral leases.They had been used to moving around the land because of the lack of a reliable water source, but since European settlement, they had been forced to camp in groups. One of these camps was near a place known as Damper Hill, and another, Ram Paddock. Many of them worked on the stations.Nepabunna Mission was established in 1931 by the United Aborigines Mission, created on 52 km2 (20 sq mi) of land that was then part of Balcoona Station, given by the owner Roy Thomas. Jim Page and Fred Eaton were instrumental in the creation of the mission, and Page was remembered many years later for his kindness and for his encouragement of the continuance of traditional practices. However, this was frowned upon by others in the organisation and there were plans to investigate him, before he committed suicide at Nepabunna, where he was buried. A school was built, which was also used for church services. A dormitory was built in the 1940s, although not used for many years, but sometime after 1948 it was used to house children of parents who worked elsewhere. A government school was built in 1963.R. M. Williams had become a missionary with the UAM in 1927, and he started a workshop nearby to develop his business making riding equipment and his trademark boots, employing not only "Dollar Mick" Smith, an Aboriginal man originally from Lyndhurst who taught Williams leatherwork skills, but also at least eight mission residents, between 1932 and 1934.The mission passed into state government control in 1973, before being handed back to the Adnyamathanha people in 1977.The last person born on the mission, Ronald Coulthard, died in 2014.

A University of Adelaide anthropological expedition travelled to Nepabunna in May 1937 led by J.B. Cleland,which included Charles P. Mountford as ethnologist and photographer, as well as botanist Thomas Harvey Johnston, virologist Frank Fenner, and others. Mountford was especially interested in the Adnyamathanha people's art, mythology and rituals. He came back later in the year and many times thereafter, recording Adnyamathanha language and culture. The Mountford-Sheard Collection in the State Library of South Australia shows that he had intended to write a book about them, but this was never realised. However the library has a large collection of handwritten journals, photographs, sound and film recordings gathered by him from and about the people.