Nyaparu Gardiner

Nyaparu Gardiner and his wife Katie. (Picture by Eleonora Deak)

Nyaparu (William) Gardiner has worked for many years on recording and writing Nyangumarta language and stories. Nyaparu is a talented artist, language worker and storyteller, and has also worked on a series of illustrations for Wangka Maya publications. His art work will be featured in the 2011 publication How to Read and Write in Pilbara Aboriginal Languages.

In 2006 Wangka Maya published his life story, Ngajumili Muwarr Wanikinarni Partanyja Wirtujatinyankanu Mirtanyajartinyi. Nyaparu told the story in Nyangumarta and English and the book is illustrated with his drawings. His story starts with his childhood in the 1940s before the Pilbara Aboriginal strike of 1946 when Aboriginal station workers walked off the job in protest at being paid much less than non-Aboriginal workers, or being paid only in rations of meat, flour, sugar and tea. After working on pastoral stations throughout the Pilbara and Kimberley, Nyaparu returned to Strelley Community where he worked on writing people's stories, including life stories and dreamtime stories. "I have the good fortune to be able to read and write in both Nyangumarta and English because I went to school when I was a little boy," he wrote.

Nyaparu draws from his memories of his life on pastoral stations in the Pilbara and Kimberly