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Collection: Shorty Jangala Robertson

Date of Birth : 1925
Country : Yuendumu
Language : Warlpiri

As a child Shorty lived the life of a desert nomad with virtually no contact with white-man.

He remembers the Conniston massacre and Aboriginal people and families being shot at Wantaparri, close to the Jila, the place of his birth. They left Jila for Mt Theo to hide from the massacre and being shot. When his father died at Mt Theo, Shorty moved with his mother to Mt Doreen Station and the new settlement of Yuendumu.

During World War 2 the army took the people from Yuendumu to Lajamanu, there Shorty and his mother were separated, but she came and got him and they travelled hundreds of kilometres through the desert until they finally settled at Yuendumu in 1967 after the Australian Citizen Referendum.
Shorty Jangala Robertson