WARLPIRI RELIGION. While the boundaries of Warlpiri territory have moved through time, the central-western part of the Northern Territory has generally been regarded as the heart of Warlpiri country. Until they were forced to sedentarize by the Australian government in the early 1940s, the Warlpiri people led an independent hunting and gathering life in an area spreading over approximately 53,200 square miles (137,800 square kilometers). While mandatory sedentarization deprived Warlpiri men and women of their socioeconomic roles as gatherers and hunters, they sustained what continues to give them their raison d'être: their connections to the land, their cosmology, and their ancestors. The Warlpiri reside mainly in the settlements of Yuendumu, Lajamanu, Ali-Curang, Willowra, and Nyirrpi (and their outstations) and represent the most populous Aboriginal group in central Australia. The fact that most Warlpiri continue to reside on lands they traditionally inhabited accounts in part for the vigor...