I Have a Ngaanyatjarra Name!

Surprisingly, I met my Warburton warmshowers host, Hannah and Alex, a few days before I arrived at their home.

I was biking on the Great Central Road when a vehicle pulled up near me and stopped. A woman got out of the off-road vehicle and waved toward me. So I stopped.

“You must be Thuan,” she said. I was surprised. That is, until she said, “I’m Hannah from Warburton.” I was heading to her home, which was a couple of days away, so I didn’t expect to see her at this point. But I was happy to see a friendly face a few days early. Alex, her partner, also pulled up in the second vehicle and I met him then, too. The encounter was a uplifting one for me and set the tone for the rest of my ride into Warburton.

“We saw the bicycle tracks on the road from many miles back, and knew it had to be you. There would only be one bicycle that I know of right now on this entire road.” It’s an all-dirt road, and one can leave tracks for days, even weeks. And of course, a solitary bicycle track would stand out among all the other tire tracks. “I was hoping we would run into you, and here we are,” she remarked.

There were aboriginal friends in the two vehicles, and of course, they saw me on the bicycle. One of them would later ask about me. Why would I be out there in the desert alone on the bike. When Alex said that I was riding the entire Great Central Road, the aboriginal man said, “Ngaaltadarra.” So Hannah pointed out to me, “You now have a Ngaanyatjarra name: Ngaaltadarra.”

Ngaanyatjarra is the primary aboriginal group around the Warburton region. In that language, Ngaaltadarra means “poor thing,” a term of sorrow or sadness about one’s state of being. We have a similar thought in English, like “you poor thing!”

What was interesting to me was the connotation behind the suggested name, as explained by Hannah. It was not that I was some miserable creature suffering the vicissitudes of nature. Many people passing by would feel sorry for me for having to arduously cycle the long distances. Rather, the aboriginal man in the truck (I didn’t get his name) had a different perspective. He asked if I was going to see family. In aboriginal culture one would walk thousands of miles for the specific purpose of seeing family that is far away. That is perhaps the primary reason one would undertake a journey of such great distance. When Hannah explained to him that I had no family here to go see, he sadly said, “Ngaaltadarra! He has no one to talk to but the birds.” The absence of family connection, the loneliness that I must have, was the reason for the interjection. The connection to family is very important, and if I didn’t have that as the purpose for my long journey, then it is must be sad and lonely journey.

I thought that was a noble reason for the name. So I was content to keep that as my new Ngaanyatjarra name– Ngaaltadarra— as a keepsake from my Australian travels.