ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some aspects of the life and death of cars on the freehold Pitjantjatjara Lands in the Western Desert, South Australia. Car ownership is important in this interplay between individual autonomy and continuous dynamism of social relationships, analysed eloquently by Myers working with the Pintupi. Cars, like most other things, have many uses just as a car journey has no single raison detre even if only one is stated. As they travel along dirt roads10 cars are transformed, rapidly modified both by bush through which they travel and by their owners, acquiring contrasting panels, odd wheels, fabric instead of window-glazing and, inside, an accumulation of rubbish. The ability of Aboriginal people to navigate in the bush is legendary and one of few things, along with tracking, which non-Aboriginals admired them for. Like live cars, dead ones and spare parts have many potential uses. Intact dead cars marooned outside houses are sometimes used as retreats by solitary young men.
