Knowledge of sacred sites and objects, paintings and rock engravings explained to Mountford in confidence during fieldwork in 1940, which he recorded and photographed and printed in Nomads of the Australian Desert (1976).
Material type
Restricted oral knowledge
Restricted to
Initiated Pitjantjatjara men
Restriction mechanism
social_sanction
Stated reason
Knowledge given in confidence and not to be seen by women, children or uninitiated men
Tradition origins
ancient
Recorded practice status
Practiced
Provisional: no dated status evidence is linked.
Status as of
Not recorded
Status claims
Not recorded
Disclosure dates, source publication dates, tradition origins and dates of practice are separate.
What this disclosure covers
Descriptions and photographs of sacred sites and objects, paintings and rock engravings
The book has not been read for this dataset; coverage is as described in SRC-0074 and SRC-0063.
OSINT check 2026-11-04: Located a specific CiNii catalogue record, with a separate institutional collection record at https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/items/c86a2557-3431-4268-bb9c-d658fddea2bd . This identifies a bibliographic/holding route, not a complete scan; content inspection and authenticity are not upgraded.
Published by Rigby, Adelaide. Withdrawn from sale after Foster v Mountford (1976) 29 FLR 233, also reported as 14 ALR 71; copies remain in libraries and the second-hand trade.
Claims about this item
These claims may cite other sources for the same restricted item. Supporting and contradicting evidence remain separate.
CLM-0063 · Suppression
In 1976 Justice James Muirhead of the Northern Territory Supreme Court, on an ex parte application by members of the Pitjantjatjara Council heard in chambers, applied the equitable law of confidential information to restrain the book's sale, display and distribution in the Northern Territory. He called the book a magnificent publication but found that the plaintiffs would suffer damage and dislocation if its confidential material reached the uninitiated. The publisher Rigby then withdrew it; about 2,000 copies had been sold, several hundred were destroyed in a warehouse fire, and the rest were bought by the Aboriginal Arts Board.
Claim support
Single source
Record review
Reviewed
Period
1976
Locators
SRC-0063: paras 2–3 and 11–16; SRC-0074: section 'Case law', text at notes 131–133 (citing 29 FLR 233 at 236)
SRC-0074 (a Federal Court judge's paper) and SRC-0063 (journalism) agree on the court, judge, ex parte procedure, legal basis and territorial scope. They are not counted as independent because both rest on the same judgment, which has not been read for this dataset. The withdrawal and the figures for copies sold, burned and bought come from SRC-0063 alone, given as 'understood' without a source. SRC-0074 notes the case has limited weight as precedent because it was heard ex parte.
SRC-0063: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0063: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
SRC-0074: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0031: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0064 · Stated reason
The plaintiffs said the knowledge had been explained to Mountford in confidence by Pitjantjatjara people during his 1940 fieldwork, more than 35 years earlier, and was restricted by gender and initiation, so that publishing it breached a duty of confidence. They claimed to represent all Aboriginal people living on Pitjantjatjara traditional lands.
Claim support
Single source
Record review
Reviewed
Period
1976
Locators
SRC-0063: paras 14–15; SRC-0074: section 'Case law', text at note 132
Both sources report the plaintiffs' case as recorded in the judgment, so they are not independent. Few, if any, of the original informants were alive in 1976 (SRC-0063).
SRC-0063: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0063: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
SRC-0074: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0031: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0065 · Other
The injunction has effect only in the Northern Territory. As of 2019 the book was held by at least 70 Australian libraries and offered by booksellers in Australia and abroad.
Library count from the author's search of the National Library of Australia catalogue.
SRC-0063: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0063: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0031: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
Evidence qualifications
SRC-0062 · source_authenticity_unassessed: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0062 · source_without_content_hash: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
DISC-0060 · record_unreviewed: Record review status is unreviewed; review is not proof of truth.
ITEM-0031 · status_without_dated_evidence: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
Reviewed means checked against a source. It does not establish source authenticity, independent corroboration or present-day practice.
