Just over 160 km south of Alice Springs is the
Chambers Pillar Historical
Reserve, covering an area of some 340 hectare. Home to some interesting
sandstone formations that were created some 350 million years ago, when sandstone deposits were laid down in the area.
With the action of wind and rain, the softer material eroded away leaving the
harder sandstone material that make up the prominent features in the reserve.
These landforms are remnant mesa, that is usually characterised by a flat
'tabletop', made of Devonian-Carboniferous sandstone.
The most recognised and
photographed formation is Chambers Pillar itself, towering some 50 metres high
above the surrounding plain. This huge sandstone pillar is known as Chambers
Pillar (the Aboriginal name is 'Itirkawara'). There are two other
prominent features in the reserve, Castle Rock ('Yayurara') and Window
This pillar was a very important landmark that guided the region's
earliest pioneers as they travelled through the region.
Cultural Aboriginal Significance
A site of Aboriginal significance, Chambers Pillar and the surrounding region is
part of Aboriginal dreamtime that speak of the knob-tailed gecko ancestor
Itirkawara (pronounced it-turk-kar-wara). Itirkawara left the
Finke River and journeyed north-east on his way home to his birth place. As he
travelled, he grew stronger, a huge powerfully built man who had super human
strength and an extreme violent temper. Such was his strength, he challenged and
killed a number of ancestors with his stone knife.
Flushed with his success,
he then took a girl for a wife, who under the strict marriage code was from the
wrong skin group and forbidden. This enraged the relatives who promptly banished
him and the girl.
Banished because of this behaviour, he brought the girl to
these sandhills, where among the dunes they rested. At this spot where he sat
down to rest and
Itirkawara turned to stone (Chambers Pillar), while his female companion,
crouching 500 metres away to the northeast, with her face turned away in shame,
became Yayurara (Castle Rock).
For the southern Arrente Aboriginal Community, Chambers Pillar is a permanent
reminder of the need to observe kinship laws.