THE distinctive red soil that covers the Western Australia outback is known as
pindan. Poking from a small, dry mound of it, in a remote, dusty graveyard a nine-hour drive from the nearest big city, is a wooden cross bearing nothing but two dates and one name: "Keith Murdoch".
Keith Murdoch's story came to an end in the
pindan of a dusty graveyard
G.; Su, Q.; Cincotta, M.; Skinner, M.; Skinner, K.;
Pindan, B.; White, G.; O'Dea, K.
Minyjun sided with the Don McLeod group, while the others, under the leadership of Ernie Mitchell and Peter Coppin and the masthead '
Pindan', settled at Yandeyarra.
We move through wetlands with reeds shoulder height, lunch in Garnboor (paperbark) forests with butterflies dancing between trees, pass vivid red Yanniyarri (red
pindan cliffs), navigate tufted grasslands and wade knee deep in freshwater creeks, with the ocean ever present from where the spirit beings come.
Ia kumpang langan Bone It bends like a tree-top toward Bone, Ia kumbaya baya It sways for a while, Ia mentangkean
pindan It becomes branches of white porcelain bowls, Mendaunan sanda sanda Becomes leaves of all kinds, Angga dipokalalanna Everything that is used, Mintu' dikande kandena ...
The traditional owners and lobbyists argued that broad-scale cotton farming would result in unwanted development of large areas of pastoral land and
pindan woodland, and the proposed extraction of up to 90 percent of the estimated flow of groundwater in the La Grange aquifer (Environs Kimberley n.d.:1).
Ic on wincle gefraegn weaxan nathwaet,
pindan ond punian, pecene hebban; on paet banlease bryd grapode, hygewlonc hondum, hraegle peahte prindende ping peodnes dohtor.
Some portions consist of sandy hillocks with red sediments (
pindan dunes) raised above the low plain of the mangroves sometimes in the vicinity of creeklines and usually populated by small scrub plant species such as saltbush and Triodia spp.
The only red carpet is the region's famous
pindan dust.