Mutable things: Colours as material practice in the northwest of South Australia

Abstract

This article details the material colour practices of Anangu (Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people) living in the east of the Western Desert, to show how coloured things have been instrumental in remaking their lives post contact with the colonizers. I argue here that 'colour' is a cultural invention. Brightly coloured things, such as cloth and paints, were eagerly appropriated by Aboriginal people when these were imported during the colonization of Australia. Material colours, including consumer goods, have become integral to Anangu's conception of their own humanity in the contemporary world. For Anangu, colours manifest the mutability of things and sequences of colour transformations are states of becoming.