Ngaatjatjarra people

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The Ngaatjatjarra (otherwise spelt Ngadadjara) are an Indigenous Australian people of Western Australia, with communities located in the north eastern part of the Goldfields-Esperance region.

Contents

Name

The ethnonym Ngaatjatjarra, in line with a general practice in their area, combines the interrogative pronoun used by each tribe for "who", "what". In their case this yields up a combination of ŋa:da and the possessive suffix -t(d)jara, is attached. The sense therefore is, "(people) using the form ŋa:da for the idea of 'who/what'". [1]

Language

Ngaatjatjarra is mutually intelligible with Ngaanyatjarra, and both are treated as dialects of the one language. [2]

Country

Norman Tindale [lower-alpha 1] assigned them traditional lands he estimated as covering roughly 78,000 square kilometres (30,000 sq mi). The centre of their traditional life was in the Warburton Ranges and in particular at a site, Warupuju Spring, where water was always available. [3] [lower-alpha 2] Their eastern frontiers lay around Fort Welcome, the Blackstone Ranges, Murray Range and Mount Hinckley. In the southeast, their furthest boundary was at the Ero:tjo watering hole, south of Wangalina. To the northeast, they roamed as far as Kudjuntari in the Schwerin Mural Crescent Range and around Julia (Giles) in the Yurliya Range. Their northern range extended to Hopkins Lake and Carnegie Range and beyond the Christopher Lake. Their western limits were around Tekateka and Jalara and the Alfred Marie Ranges. [4]

Tindale's map places the neighbouring tribes of the Ngaatjatjarra as, running clockwise, the Keiadjara and the Wenamba to their north, the Pitjantjatjara on their eastern frontier, the Nakako and Mandjindja to their south and the Ngaanyatjarra on their western borders. [5] The AIATSIS map calls then Ngatatjara and absorbs the Keiadjara and the Wenamba in to the Martu and Pintupi respectively. [6]

A native map of their water mythology explaining how the overarching rainbow, Tjurtiraŋo, produces the various water resources, was made for Tindale in the 1939s and is reproduced in his 1974 book. [7]

Ngaanyatjara lands

The "Ngaanyatjara lands" are those administered by the Ngaanyatjarra Council (Aboriginal Corporation), which includes the communities of [8] Irrunytju (Wingelinna), [9] Kiwirrkurra, [10] Mantamaru (Jameson), [11] Papulankutja (Blackstone), [12] Patjarr (Karilywara), [13] Kanpa (Pira Kata), [14] Tjirrkarli, [15] Tjukurla, [16] [17] Warakurna, [18] Wanarn, [19] Warburton (Mirlirrtjarra).

Social organization

The practiced patrilocal residence, and their marriage arrangements were based on for class system. [20] Father's father, father, son, son's son and their brothers inherited a totem (tjukur/tuma) which bore associations with specific topographical features of the landscape that evoked the movements of the creative being in their dreaming. [20] They practiced both circumcision and subincision, in two distinct phrases, on youths undergoing initiation into full manhood, employing biface pressure-flaked stone knives ('tjimbila), which they obtained through trade with neighbouring tribes to their north, who in turn ultimately received them from their production centre in northwestern Australia. [21]

Food

The Ngaatjatjarra harvested grass seeds (wakati) and worked them with rolling stones to obtain a paste for nutriment. They also gathered nicotiniana excelsior, a tobacco leaf which they dried over fire and which they chew after mixing them with ashes from burnt acacia and phyllodes. [22]

History of contact

The first white contact with the Ngaatjatjarra came relatively late. Tindale describes in detail one nuclear family of the tribe encountered in August 1935 during the Expedition of the Board for Anthropological Research of the University of Adelaide. [23]

Alternative names

Source: Tindale 1974 , p. 250

Some words

Notes

  1. ↑ Tindale's estimates particularly for the peoples of the Western desert are not considered to be accurate. (Tonkinson 1989, p. 101)
  2. ↑ During the severe drought of the mid-30s, members of the Adelaide expedition managed to be at Warupuju spring when ŋatari (strangers), Ngaanyatjarra tribespeople, desperate for water, pushed their way in from the west. An altercation, which was filmed, soon ensued as the local clan defended its control of the water soak, until a ritual accommodation was found and the Ngaanyatjarra were given permission to access the waters. (Tindale 1974, pp. 70, 70)

Citations

  1. ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 41.
  2. ↑ Kral 2012, p. 41.
  3. ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 65.
  4. ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 250.
  5. ↑ TTB 2016.
  6. ↑ AIATSIS.
  7. ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 68.
  8. ↑ https://www.ngaanyatjarra.org.au/map Map of communities with links to extra details
  9. ↑ Knights 2006.
  10. ↑ Brinkley 2009, pp. 67–70.
  11. ↑ Munroe 1991.
  12. ↑ Papulankutja Artists 2015.
  13. ↑ Munro 2004.
  14. ↑ Grey-Gardner 2008.
  15. ↑ Nelson 1993.
  16. ↑ Dousset 1996.
  17. ↑ Montredon & Ellis 2014.
  18. ↑ Raffan 2009.
  19. ↑ Brooks & Jorgensen 2015.
  20. 1 2 3 Tindale 1974, p. 12.
  21. ↑ Tindale 1974, pp. 13–14, 83–84.
  22. ↑ Tindale 1974, pp. 95–97.
  23. ↑ Tindale 1974, pp. 11–12.
  24. ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 11.

Sources

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