As TGH suggests in JTHB, Mananganagna Cave is a site of great significance in Arrerente culture. In an essay published as part of a pamphlet series for The Strehlow Research Foundation, TGH recalls his childhood memories of the cave and the way it was viewed among the Arrernte people.
'I noticed that none of my dark playmates would go west of the hill of Alkumbadora (which marked the limits of the Mananganagna sacred cae area, as I later found out). The actual site of the cave was still almost a mile further on; but even adult hunters would not go closer to Manangannga than this hill, lest their footprints should reveal that they had committed sacrilege by approaqching the sacred site too closely: only the ceremonial chief (ingkata) of Ntarea could do so, and it was he who would take other initiated men with him on such occasions. Before white missionaries had come to Ntarea, the warning given to the Aranda children had been of the grimmest nature; they had been told never to play near Alkumbadora, lest their dead bodies should be found there. Similar warnings kept women, children, and all unauthorised males from venturing close to any sacred sites.'
See TGH Strehlow ------, 'The Strehlow Foundation, Pamphlet 3', vol 1, April 1978.
(Note I found this reference in Kath Strehlow's MS 'The Oeration of Fear in Traditional Aboriginal Society in Central Australia', pub The Strehlow Foundation, n.d., p 6
