Ngangkari Healing

Anangu healers of the Western Desert

Ngangkari are traditional healers of the Anangu, the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara peoples of the remote Western Desert of Central Australia. The NPY Women's Council says they have looked after people's physical and emotional health for thousands of years, and the healers' own corporation, ANTAC, describes a 60,000-year-old medical knowledge system. Both figures are the organizations' own statements and are not dated by the sources.

A 2012 interview study in Central Australia, which included seven Ngangkari Tjuta (many healers), described them as holding a critical place in contemporary Aboriginal life as protectors of wellbeing in times of trouble, sickness and sadness. A 2021 ANZSOG article says knowledge is typically passed on by elders after a child is identified in early childhood, and a 2019 ABC report says Ngangkari are determined by bloodline.

Organizations and health-service partnerships

The Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council (NPYWC) began its Ngangkari Program in 1998 to support healers working in communities, clinics and hospitals. The Anangu Ngangkari Tjutaku Aboriginal Corporation (ANTAC) is described as the first Australian organization of Aboriginal traditional healers. The Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations dates its founding to 2012, while ANZSOG gives 2013, so the year differs by source.

ANTAC's founder, Dr. Francesca Panzironi, researched Aboriginal traditional medicine in South Australia from 2008 to 2012, and her 2013 report Hand-in-Hand argues for a two-way health model. In 2019 the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network entered a partnership with ANTAC, and a nursing journal reported that it had developed the first formal clinical procedure for Ngangkari working in a health setting. A 1975 Australian nursing journal article titled Working with the Ngangkari shows the term was already in health-service literature, but only its record was available for this review.

Ngangkari and the names of methods

Ngangkari (spelled Ngangkaṟi by ANTAC and the RACP) is the Pitjantjatjara word for these healers. Reports of the hospital program name three main methods: pampuni, healing touch; mapampa, blowing or breath; and marali, spiritual healing and bush medicines. These glosses come from journalists quoting program staff, not from a linguistic source, and the spelling mapampa is that used in the reports.

The sources reviewed do not define the term mapanpa, and none describes a named scented-plant balm as part of Ngangkari practice beyond a general reference to bush medicine balms. Those terms are therefore not defined here.

Kurunpa and related words

In the 2012 Central Australian study, healers described kurunpa as the life force, present in physical, emotional and spiritual forms, which can be injured, moved, lost, found or replaced. One healer contrasted a settled state, with the head level and blood flowing well, with a worried state in which kurunpa becomes tjukaru, crooked or bent. This is the healers' account of illness as reported by the researchers, not a clinical definition.

The NPYWC's Uti Kulintjaku project, led by Ngangkari and senior Anangu, takes its name from a phrase meaning to listen, think and understand clearly. It is a program for building shared mental health language between Anangu and health workers, and is related to, but not the same as, individual healing sessions.

Methods as described

The Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations describes Ngangkari as focusing on a person's spirit rather than only on physical symptoms. In that account the healers remove what they perceive as foreign bodies, reunite a separated spirit with the body, and give massage and bush medicine balms, and one patient called the diagnostic method a kind of x-ray vision. A 2018 article by a university researcher adds observation, listening and touch, and says the healers treat psychological distress by repositioning a displaced spirit.

A 2016 report on healers working in Sydney describes hands pressed on the skin and kneading movements to take away pain, with one client describing sensations of things moving inside. These are descriptions by healers, clients and journalists and have not been independently verified.

Accreditation and service delivery

ANTAC maintains a register of accredited healers. The corporation's profile reports 20 accredited Ngangkari in 2017 and a board of five directors that must include at least two men and two women, and ANZSOG says healers are credentialed by traditional law and are paid under a set structure. Ngangkaṟiku Tjurkupa, a customary law, is referred to in the corporation's profile.

In the Adelaide partnership, access is by clinician referral or family request, and the RACP case study reports regular clinics at four sites and services in emergency departments, aged care, alcohol and drug rehabilitation, palliative care and mental health clinics. Funding for sessions is described as coming from a brokerage program fund.

What practitioners and programs describe

Program staff and healers describe Ngangkari work as taking away pain and restoring a person's spirit, with one report quoting patients as saying they feel their spirit has returned. The RACP case study names grief, depression and other mental health challenges, and gives an example in which a spirit said to be present in a dialysis room was cleared by the healers so that treatment could continue.

Program leaders also claim a service benefit: a hospital physician quoted by the ABC said that if a person's spirit is not addressed, Aboriginal patients are less likely to engage with care. The ANZSOG article lists claimed benefits of a two-way model, including fuller assessment, reduced misdiagnosis, calming of patients and better uptake of conventional treatment, as findings reported by the program's research.

Complementary positioning

The sources consistently present Ngangkari care as complementary to hospital and clinic care. The ABC says the hospital program is not a replacement for conventional medicine, and the 2018 article says healers often recommend that patients also see doctors for physical ailments.

Searches and trial evidence

No randomized trial or systematic review of Ngangkari healing was found. A PubMed search for the term Ngangkari returned one 1975 nursing journal item, and a combined search for Aboriginal traditional healers, Central Australia and Pitjantjatjara returned no records. A 2023 integrative review of traditional therapies for First Nations peoples in Australian health care included seven studies (four qualitative, two mixed methods, one quantitative) and concluded that the literature on using traditional therapies in Western settings is limited.

Qualitative and program evidence

The best-described study is a 2012 grounded-theory interview study with 22 Aboriginal men and traditional healers in seven remote communities and Alice Springs. It found that depression was commonly expressed as weakness or injury of the spirit and linked to loss of cultural connection, cumulative stress and marginalization. It addressed how distress is understood, not whether Ngangkari treatment benefits patients, and its limits include a single analyst and a small sample.

ANTAC reports evaluating every service episode with qualitative and quantitative measures, with results expected to be published; the RACP case study quotes its leaders as saying the health system has engaged Indigenous consumers in new ways. ANZSOG reports that hospital managers observed patients to be happier and more comfortable but gives no quantitative outcome data. These accounts come from program participants and partners. The 2013 Hand-in-Hand report could not be opened for this review.

Care boundaries and harms data

None of the sources reviewed reports adverse events, harms or contraindications associated with Ngangkari healing, and none reports a systematic collection of such data. Absence of reports is not evidence of absence of harm. The preparations described as bush medicine balms are not described in these sources as having been tested for dose, interactions or quality.

The sources present the healers as working alongside doctors, and conventional medical care should not be delayed or replaced because of a traditional treatment. The 2018 author notes there was no category for Ngangkari services in government payments, so access depends on program funding rather than routine billing.

Cultural and access considerations

Most Ngangkari come from remote APY, Ngaanyatjarra and related communities, and ABC reporting says the hospital program was intended partly to address that distance. ANTAC states that it operates as a child-safe organization. Sessions described in the sources are arranged through referral, family request or the corporations, and the sources do not describe a way to verify a person claiming the name outside those routes.

What is traditional Anangu practice

In every source reviewed, the name Ngangkari refers to Anangu healers who are recognized within Anangu law and kinship, with knowledge passed on within families and by elders. Practice in the Adelaide hospitals and in the NPYWC and ANTAC programs is delivered by such healers. Practice described by those organizations is therefore the traditional reference point on this page.

What this page does not cover

Modern hybrid or non-Anangu practices, including those covered on the separate pages for Dreamtime Healing and Holographic Kinetics, are not described in any source reviewed and should not be read as Ngangkari practice or as endorsed by Anangu organizations. This overview also omits restricted or sacred knowledge, which the sources do not set out and which is held by the healers. It does not assess any individual provider or program.