Cundeelee mission and school, located approximately 40km north of Zanthus on the Nullabor, was established by the Australian Aborigines’ Evangelical Mission in 1949. It was run by interdenominational churches until 1982, when it became an Aboriginal Community. Cundeelee accommodated children up to primary school age as well as families.
Cundeelee was established by the Australian Aborigines’ Evangelical Mission (AAEM) in 1949. From around 1939 to 1948 there had been a government ‘feeding depot’ for Aboriginal people on the site. When the AAEM offered to establish a mission, they were actively encouraged by the Department of Native Affairs. Cundeelee was reportedly established to discourage Aboriginal people from ‘begging’ on the trans-Australian railway line. However, many Anangu people, from Spinifex Country in the Central Western Desert, were also relocated to Cundeelee when their lands become uninhabitable due to radioactive fallout from nuclear testing in the area.
In 1952, a sandalwood licence was issued to Cundeelee, and youth and men from the mission worked on the ‘Sandalwood Project’ as it was known in the Department of Native Affairs. A photograph taken in 1957 has a caption that states Aboriginal youth were being paid for collecting sandalwood, although whether this was actually the case is not known.
By the early 1980s, the Cundeelee property was vested in the Aboriginal Lands Trust and was later leased to Upurl Upurlia Ngurratja. In 1985 Cundeelee was closed due to a lack of fresh water. Many from Cundeelee relocated to Coonana, to the south-west of Cundeelee, whilst others established a community called Tjuntjuntjara, to the north-east.
In 2019, a collection of approximately 1000 historical photographs taken at Cundeelee by former missionary Robert Mckeich between 1954 and 2000 were handed back to the Tjuntjuntjara community.
From
1949
To
1985
Alternative Names
Cunderlee
1949 - c. 1982
Cundeelee Mission was located at Cundeelee, Western Australia (Building Partially demolished)
