Europeans did not arrive in Central Australia until the 1860s and unfortunately Indigenous place-names were only sporadically recorded and often with varying degrees of accuracy. Spencer and Gillen recorded the Indigenous names of many of the places they either visited or were told about by Aboriginal people and understood that “small local groups” occupy and

possess, a given area of country, the boundaries of which are well known... [They] will refer to these local groups by the name of the locality which each of them inhabits. Still further examination of each local group reveals the fact that it is composed largely, but not entirely, of individuals who describe themselves by the name of some one animal or plant. Thus there will be one area which belongs to a group of men who call themselves kangaroo men, another belonging to emu men, another to Hakea flower men, and so on, almost every animal and plant which is found in the country having its representative amongst the human inhabitants. (Native Tribes of Central Australia 1899:10)