Kaurna

The Kaurna people are a group of Indigenous Australians whose traditional lands include the area around the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. Pronunciation of the word "Kaurna" varies slightly by the background and origin of the speaker; the most common is [ga:na], sometimes [gauna], [gauɲa] or, less often, [k^hana].

Kaurna culture and language was almost completely destroyed within a few decades of the European settlement of South Australia in 1836.^[1] However, extensive documentation by early missionaries and other researchers has enabled a modern revival of both language and culture.

Etymology

European settlers originally referred to the indigenous inhabitants of the Adelaide Plains simply as "the Adelaide tribe". The name "Kaurna" was not widely used until popularised by Norman B. Tindale in the 1920's.^[2] It most likely derives from the Ramindjeri or Ngarrindjeri word kornar meaning "men" or "people". Lewis O'Brien, a Kaurna Elder during the 1990s, suggested that a more appropriate name for his people might be Meyunna, from the local word for "people", meyu. However, "Kaurna" has been almost universally adopted by the Kaurna people and non-indigenous people alike to refer to the Adelaide tribe.

Territory

The Kaurna language group extended from Cape Jervis at the bottom of the Fleurieu Peninsula to Port Wakefield on the eastern shore of Gulf Saint Vincent, and as far north as Crystal Brook in the Mid North. Clans were found living in the vicinity of Snowtown, Blyth, Hoyleton, Hamley Bridge, Clarendon, Gawler and Myponga. The stringy bark forests of the Mount Lofty Ranges are recognised as a traditional boundary between the Kaurna and Peramangk people.

This is the most widely cited alignment of Kaurna boundaries. However a neighboring tribe, the Ramindjeri, claim a territory including the whole southern portion of the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island, extending as far north as Noarlunga^[2] or even the River Torrens.^[3] This would overlap a significant portion of the land claimed by both the Kaurna and the neighboring Nganrrindjeri to the east. However, linguistic evidence suggests that the Aborigines encountered by Colonel Light at Rapid Bay in 1836 were Kaurna speakers.^[2]

People and culture

The Kaurna people were a hunter-gatherer society. Among their customs was the practice of fire-stick farming (controlled bushfires) in the Adelaide Hills, which the early European settlers spotted before the Kaurna were displaced. These fires were part of Kaurna scrub clearing to encourage grass growth for Emu and Kangaroo.^[4]

A main Kaurna presence was in Tarndanyangga ("red kangaroo rock place") near the River Torrens and the creeks that flowed into it, an area which became the site of the Adelaide settlement. The Kaurna also resided in the Burnside Suburb area; an early settler of the village of Beaumont described the local Kaurna: "At every creek and gully you would see their wurlies [simple Aboriginal homes made out of twigs and grass] and their fires at night ... often as many as 500 to 600 would be camped in various places ... some behind the Botanic Gardens on the banks of the river; some toward the Ranges; some on the Waterfall Gully."^[5][6]

The original population may have been several thousand prior to an 1829—1830 smallpox epidemic originating from the Eastern states. At the establishment of South Australia in 1836 it was nearer 700 and a report in 1841 notes a population of 650.^[7] The Kaurna population had been seriously depleted prior to 1836, with the spread of smallpox from the eastern states thought to have come along the Murray River.^[8] The population again severely declined upon the arrival of Anglo-European colonial settlers with South Australia Governor Capt John Hindmarsh as Commander in chief Proclamation December 1836 at Holdfast Bay (now Glenelg), from about 1000 members before settlement to 180 in 1856.^[9] An outbreak of typhoid, due to pollution by Europeans of the River Torrens, lead to many deaths and a rapid population decline though accurate figures were not recorded.^[7] The land was considered to be terra nullius by the enactment of the South Australia Act on 14 August 1834 by the British Parliament.^[10] despite King William IV South Australia Letters Patent and Governor Hindmarsh Proclamation 1836 (In Australian law this was finally annulled in 1992 by the Mabo decision.) The last surviving full-blood Kaurna woman, called Ivaritji, died in 1931.^[8]

Tribal organisation

The Kaurna people lived in independent family structures in defined territories called pangkarra. Pangkarra always had access to the coastline and ran extensively inland. The coastline was essential for seafood hunting and the inland territories provided protection to the people during bad weather. The pangkarra were then grouped into larger areas of land called yerta. "Yerta" is defined as "a complete territory which is able to sustain a group with all economic necessities".^[9]

All the members in the yerta and different pangkarra were intimately linked. Marriage between a man and a woman within the same yerta was forbidden. The Kaurna performed circumcision as an initiatory rite and were the southernmost indigenous language group to do so. ^[9]

Documentation

A knowledge of Kaurna language and culture was keenly sought by many of the early settlers. William Williams and James Cronk were the first settlers to gain a working knowledge of the language, and to publish a Kaurna wordlist, which they did in 1840.^[2][11] When George Gawler, South Australia's third Governor, arrived in October 1838, he gave a speech to the local indigenous population through a translator, William Wyatt. Gawler actively encouraged the settlers to learn Kaurna, and advocated using the Kaurna names for geographic landmarks.

Two German missionaries, Clamor Schurmann and Christian Teichelmann, arrived on the same ship as Gawler in 1838, and immediately set about learning and documenting the language in order to civilise and "Christianise" the natives.^[2] In December 1839, they opened a school at Piltawodli where the children were taught to read and write in Kaurna. Schurmann and Teichelmann translated the Ten Commandments and a number of German hymns into Kaurna, and although they never achieved their goal of translating the entire bible, their recorded vocabulary of over 2000 words was the largest wordlist recorded, and pivotal in the modern revival of the language.^[4]

Native Title Claims

In 2000, a group called Kaurna Yerta Incorporated^[12] lodged a native title claim on behalf of the Kaurna people. The claim covers land stretching from Cape Jervis to Port Broughton, and encompasses the entire Adelaide metropolitan area.^[13] As of December 2009, determination of the claim is ongoing. The Ramindjeri people have contested the southern portion of the claim.^[3]

In 2009, a group called Encompass Technology^[14] wrote to the Governor of South Australia on behalf of the Kaurna people, claiming sovereignty over the Marble Hill ruins and the Warriparinga Kaurna Living Cultural Centre in Marion and that they were owed nearly $50 million in rent.^[14] The South Australian government rejected the claim.^[15]

Kaurna place names

Many places around Adelaide and the Fleurieu Peninsula have names either directly or partially derived from Kaurna. There are also a few Kaurna names hybridised with European words.

Known Kaurna

• Aldinga - Ngalti (meaning unknown) + locative suffix -ngga.^[16]
• Cowandilla - kauanda, "north" + locative suffix -illa, hence "in the north".^[16]
• Kangarilla - kanggari + locative suffix -illa.^[16]
• Kondoparinga - possibly from kundo "chest" + parri "river" + locative suffix -ngga.^[16]
• Noarlunga - nurlo, "corner" + locative suffix =ngga, probably referring to Horseshoe Bend on the Onkaparinga River.
• Onkaparinga - derived from nganki, "woman" + parri, "river" + locative suffix -ngga.^[16]
• Patawalonga - derived from patta, a species of gum tree (possibly the [[Eucalyptus ovata

|swamp gum]] + wilya, "foliage" + locative suffix -ngga.^[16]

• Uraidla - yurreidla, "two ears", derived from a dreaming story in which the Mount Lofty Ranges are the body of a giant.^[16]
• Willunga -
• Willyaroo - wilyaru, a fully initiated adult man.^[16]

Possible Kaurna

• Piccadilly - Although usually assumed to be named after Piccadilly, London, it is likely to derive from the Kaurna pikodla, "two eyebrows", being part of the same dreaming story that gave rise to "Uraidla".^[16]
• Yankalilla - Although almost certainly an indigenous word, there are conflicting etymologies. The most likely is that it is derived from the Ramindjeri yangaiake, "hill", but with the Kaurna locative suffix -illa, or possibly yernkalyilla, "place of the fallen bits".^[16]
• Yatala - Most likely derived from the Kaurna yertalla, "water running by the side of a river".^[16]

Other

• Glenunga - Hybrid word comprising the Scots glen and Kaurna locative suffix -ngga.^[17]

See also

• Indigenous Australians
• Kaurna language
• History of Adelaide
• Tjilbruke
  • Tjilbruke's Trail

Other language groups in South Australia:

• Adynyamathanha
• Arabunna
• Kokatha
• Mirning
• Narungga
• Ngadjuri
• Ngarrindjeri
• Nukunu
• Peramangk
• Pitjantjatjara
• Yankunytjatjara

References

External links

• Concise History of the Kaurna People
• Kaurna Warra
• Kaurna Culture
• Bibliography of articles
• Kaurna Yerta
• Kaurna Place Names