Kukatja (Northern Territory)

Last updated

The Kukatja, also frequently referred to as Loritja, are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. They are not to be confused with the Kokatja of Western Australia, the Kokatja of South Australia, nor with the Kukatja of Queensland. [1] [lower-alpha 1]

Northern Territory federal territory of Australia

The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other Indonesian islands. The NT covers 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi), making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 246,700, making it the least-populous of Australia's eight states and major territories, with fewer than half as many people as Tasmania.

The Gugadja, also written Kukatja, are an indigenous Australian people of Western Australia who speak the Kukatja language.

Western Australia state in Australia

Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, and the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres, and the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.

Contents

Name

The name Kukatja is one shared by 4 other distinct tribes throughout Australia. The root of the word seems to suggest pride in being 'meat eaters' rather than people who scrounge for vegetables for sustenance. [3]

The Northern Territory Kukatja were often referred to in the ethnographical literature by Arerrnte exonyms for them, [lower-alpha 2] either Loritja or Aluritja, which bore pejorative connotations. [3] [lower-alpha 3] In recent times, the use of Luritja or Kukatja-Luritja to define themselves and refer to their culture has become commonplace. [6]

Arrernte people Aboriginal Australian people

The Arrerntepeople, sometimes referred to as the Aranda, Arunta or Arrarnta, are an Aboriginal Australian people who live in the Arrernte lands, at Mparntwe and surrounding areas of the Central Australia region of the Northern Territory. Some Aranda live in other areas far from their homeland, including the major Australian cities and overseas.

Country

According to an estimate made by Norman Tindale, the Kukatja of the Northern Territory had tribal lands covering some 10,300 square miles (27,000 km2). [1] Their territory is immediately west of the Derwent River, that formed their frontier with the Arerrnte. [6] [lower-alpha 4] He defined them as dwelling west of the Gosse Range [7] and Palm Valley on the south MacDonnell Ranges. Their southern limits went as far as Tempe Downs, and they ranged southwest to Lake Amadeus, the George Gill Range, the Merandji (the Cleland Hills) and Inindi near Mount Forbes. They were also present round Palmer, Walker, and Rudall creeks. [1]

Norman Tindale Australian biologist

Norman Barnett Tindale AO was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.

Gosses Bluff crater impact crater

Gosses Bluff is thought to be the eroded remnant of an impact crater. Known as Tnorala to the Western Arrente people of the surrounding region, it is located in the southern Northern Territory, near the centre of Australia, about 175 km (109 mi) west of Alice Springs and about 212 km (132 mi) to the northeast of Uluru. It was named by Ernest Giles in 1872 after Australian explorer William Gosse's brother Henry, who was a member of William's expedition.

Palm Valley (Northern Territory) valley

Palm Valley, within the Finke Gorge National Park, is an east-west running valley in the Krichauff Range 123 km southwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Australia. Palm Valley and the surrounding area is the only place in Central Australia where Red Cabbage Palms survive. The nearest specimens are 850 kilometres away in Queensland. The surrounding region is largely dry Central Ranges xeric scrub.

The Kukatja divided the year into four seasons, not by months, but in terms of heat or its absence: lurba/lurbaka was the cold period, followed by the warming period called mballangata. The hottestpeak, in summer, was known as mballaka/albobuka, followed by lurbagata. [8]

Ethnography

The first sustained, fundamental work on the Kukatja was done by the Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow who produced 6 monumental volumes in German on them and the neighbouring Arerrnte that were published between 1907 and 1920.

Carl Friedrich Theodor Strehlow was an anthropologist, and genealogist that served on two Lutheran missions in inland Australia from May 1892 to October 1922, a total of thirty years. He was at the first mission station, Killalpaninna, from 1892 to 1894, and the second, Hermannsburg, eighty miles west of Alice Springs, from 1894 to 1922, first as teacher and, from 1901 onwards, manager, and it is for his work here that he is mostly known today. Strehlow was ably assisted and supported by his wife Friederike Johanna Henriette Keysser, who played the central role in reducing the high infant mortality which threatened Aboriginal communities all over Australia after the onset of white settlement. It is probable that Hermannsburg was the only Mission in Australia at the start of the twentieth century where the population was growing through natural increase. As a polymath with an interest in natural history, through his Aranda informants Strehlow provided plant and animal specimens to museums in Germany and Australia, a number of which first came to scientific notice through his collecting. This was the outcome of his collaboration with Moritz, Baron von Leonhardi of Gross Karben in Hessen, Germany, who also suggested he write his monumental anthropological work Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien. With Leonhardi as editor this work became the first publication of the newly founded Städtisches Völkermuseum of Frankfurt am Main, appearing in eight parts between 1907 and 1920. Strehlow sent what was said to be the best collection in the world of Aboriginal artefacts – both sacred and secular – to Frankfurt, unfortunately largely destroyed in the bombing of the city in World War Two, though some fine pieces remain. Due to Leonhardi's sudden death in 1910, Strehlow's linguistic researches intended as part of Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme were never published, though used in manuscript form by his son Theodor George Henry Strehlow and later Hermannsburg missionaries. Strehlow also collaborated on the pioneering first complete translation of the New Testament into an Aboriginal language (Dieri), published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1897, and he later translated the New Testament into Aranda, parts of which were published after his death. He also produced a reader and service book in the latter language. Falling ill with dropsy in September 1922, he tried to reach a doctor but died at Horseshoe Bend halfway between Alice Springs and Oodnadatta, leaving Frieda and fourteen-year-old son Theodor to continue south to Adelaide without him. Professor TGH Strehlow, who is better known than Carl, built his scholarly career in part on the researches carried out by his father.

The Kukatja, together with other central Australian tribes, were the object of the first attempt to undertake an examination of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories concerning 'primitive' society in Australia when Géza Róheim did fieldwork among them for eight months in 1929. [9]

Alternative names

Some words

The following are designated as Kukatja (Loritja) words by R. H. Mathews.

Notes

  1. ↑ For the distinction see Tindale's remarks. [2]
  2. ↑ 'Kukatja ist hier Eigennamen; es ist aber auch der Stammes-Name, den sich die Loritja beilegen. Loritja werden sie von den Aranda genannt.' [4]
  3. ↑ 'Suggestive of everything that is barbarian, crude, savage and generally speaking, non-Aranda.' [5]
  4. ↑ Kenny states that those Kukatja in these border lands had a greater overlap with their eastern neighbours:'Róheim (1974: 126) called these people 'Lurittya Merino', and noted that they were seen as 'half Aranda'. People who belong to this border area are still today fluent speakers of both Aranda and Loritja and share ancestors as well as traditional laws and customs.' [6]
  5. ↑ Willshire's marloo. [10]
  6. ↑ Willshire's pup-pa. [10]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Tindale 1974, p. 229.
  2. ↑ Tindale 1974, pp. 137–138.
  3. 1 2 Tindale 1974, p. 137.
  4. ↑ Strehlow 1907, p. 57, n.9.
  5. ↑ Strehlow 1947, p. 52,cf.177.
  6. 1 2 3 Kenny 2013, p. 20.
  7. ↑ Hamacher & Goldsmith 2013, p. 304.
  8. ↑ Schulze 1891, p. 213.
  9. ↑ Morton 2017, pp. 202–206.
  10. 1 2 Willshire 1891b, p. 44.
  11. ↑ Mathews 1906, p. 120.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

Related Research Articles

Hermannsburg, Northern Territory Town in the Northern Territory, Australia

Hermannsburg is an Aboriginal community in Ljirapinta Ward of the MacDonnell Shire in the Northern Territory of Australia, 125 km west southwest of Alice Springs. Local Aboriginal people call it Ntaria.

Alyawarre otherwise known as the Iliaura, are an Indigenous Australian people, or language group, from the Northern Territory.

Moritz Freiherr von Leonhardi was a German anthropologist.

Barngarla people Australian Aboriginal ethnic group of the Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta areas of South Australia

The Barngarla, formerly known as Parnkalla, are an Aboriginal people of the Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta areas. The Barngarla are the traditional owners of much of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, Australia.

The Anmatyerre otherwise written Anmatjera, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.

Aranda Sign Language, also known as Iltyeme-iltyeme (handsigns), is a highly developed Australian Aboriginal sign language used by the Aranda people of central Australia.

The Nangatara are an indigenous Australian people of Western Australia.

The Arabana, also known as the Ngarabana, are an indigenous Australian people of South Australia.

The Djaberadjabera, also written Jabirrjabirr, were an indigenous Australian people of Western Australia.

The Matuntara are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.

The Kuyani are an indigenous Australian people of the state of South Australia who speak or spoke the Kuyani language.

The Wongkanguru were an indigenous Australian people of the state of South Australia. The Wongkanguru language is Pama-Nyungan.

The Yumu were an Indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.

The Ngaliya (Ngalia) are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory who speak a dialect of the Warlpiri language. They are not to be confused with the Ngalia of the Western Desert.

The Dhirari or Tirari were an indigenous Australian people of the state of South Australia. They are not to be confused with the Diyari, though the Dirari language is a dialect of Diyari.

The Yarluyandi, also known as Jeljendi, are an indigenous Australian people of South Australia. The Yarluyandi language was closely related to Ngamini.

The Karangura were an indigenous Australian people of South Australia.