Warlpiri people have lived in Central Australia for over 20,000 years. First contact with white people came in the late 19th century, with the coming of pastoralism. By the 1920s many Warlpiri people were living with families on cattle stations and around the mines at the Granites, Tanami and at Mt Doreen.

Yuendumu was set up as a government ration station in 1946. In 1974 a Baptist Mission was established and a school was set up shortly after. Until the 1970s most people still lived in traditional dwellings, humpies ‘yujuku’. Houses started to be built from 1970s. The settlement is divided into camps, according to the compass directions; North ‘Yatijarra’, South ‘Kurlirra’, East ‘Kakarrara and West ‘Karlarra’.