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Darby Jampijinpa Ross (c. 1905 – 14 March 2005) was respected Warlpiri elder, with responsibility for many Jukurrpa, who spent much of his life at Yuendumu. He was a founding member of the Warlukurlangu Artists who he began painting for in 1985.

He is often referred to as one of the last 'old people' at Yuendumu to really know the country, the songs, the names of the plants and animals and to have traversed large tracts of land on foot. Many Warlpiri songs, dances, stories, words pictures and place names died with him.

Life in the Northern Territory

Ross was born around 1905 and, despite the many oral histories that were recorded of him, little is known of the early period of his life. Some of the first memories of his early life that Ross talk of is his survival of the Coniston massacre in 1928, when he was a young man, he lost many family members in this massacre. He has said of this:

My sister, all about they get shot, too, there.  And my brother-in-law.  They finish all up there. And from there, they [Constable Murray’s party] bin look:  ‘‘Oh, enough here.’  Oh, him bin puttem heap, little children and big boy, young man, and big boy  ...  children.  Oh, every-thing there!  Women there, young girl.  They killem whole lot there

— Darby Jampijinpa Ross, as quoted in 'Walking a Different Road' (2004)

By the time of his retirement as an artist Ross had painted 120 documented paintings for the Warlukurlangu art centre and exhibited extensively. Many of his works are now held in major public galleries and collections around the world.