Karajarri
The Karajarri are an
Language
The first description of the grammar of their language, Garadjeri, was published by Gerhardt Laves in 1931.[6] It belongs to the Marngu branch of the Pama-Nyungan language family.[7] The native conceptualisation of its varieties recognises 4 dialect forms, the Najanaja (or Murrkut) dialect spoken by coastal Karajarri, Nangu spoken in the central hinterlands and Nawurtu further east inland.[8][9] Garadjeri has had a notable influence on the Yawuru language, many of whose terms for ceremonials, and for naming the indigenous flora and fauna, have been borrowed from the Karajarri.[7] Less than 20 native speakers (2004) remain.[2] Together with Nyangumarta, Karrajarri shows some features that are exceptional within the Kimberley Pama-Nyungan languages, in having bound pronominals affixed to inflecting verbs.[10]
Country
According to Norman Tindale,[a] Karajarri territory covers about 5,500 square miles (14,000 km2). Running from Cape Villaret on the south of Roebuck Bay until a point 10 miles (16 km) north of Jawinja, at the intertribal corroboree gathering site known as Manari. Their inland extension reaches east as far as 70 miles (110 km). Notable Karajarri sites marking their boundaries are at Lendjarkading, Redjarth, Undurmadatj and Mount Phire (Paijara).[11]
Traditional social structure
The Karajarri are divided into two distinct groups, those who inhabit the coastal areas, called Naja (Nadja), and the inlanders dwelling on the eastern plains and bushlands, the Nawutu (Naudu).[12] The social hierarchy is headed by ritual leaders (pirrka, literally 'roots of a tree'),[13] male elders who organise
Pukarri (dream) connote states of reality formed in the mythic
Ecology
The area encompassed by Karajarri lands sits on the La Grange sub-basin, one of the richest groundwater areas in Western Australia,[20][21] and a Pindan ecology, the pirra of the Karajarri inland, with stygofauna which has yet to be studied in any depth.[22]
The Karajarri perceive their world (ngurrara (one's own country') in terms of a mythology that weaves seamlessly together all the features of the landscape, the language and customs, a nexus which was then reflected in ritual practices.[23][24] The language itself, as is generally the case among indigenous cultures of Australia, is thought of in terms of particular stretches of country, and each form was first spoken by the Dreamtime being who wandered the land, speaking each tongue depending on the tract of land where its speakers came to dwell.[25]
In the Karajarri conception, one shared by many other nations in the region, such as the
There is a complex mythology concerning the living waters, focused on the spirits, pulany, dangerous or benign, that are thought to inhabit them, and are thought to be responsible for the seasonal replenishment of these water places (ngapa).[4] Special ceremonies are undertaken to ensure that the water beings make rain. Camping is avoided in such sites. The presence of such water snakes is often attested by panyjin reeds, the whiskers of the pulany, which can travel underground to emerge from tulkarru holes.[19] There exists a Karajarri song to entice back into the waters the ancestral serpent if a spring dries up, in order to refresh the aquifer. It is transmitted for such an emergency, though circumstances have never changed to require its recitation.[31]
The first whiteman's survey of the area, conducted by a party led by Frederick Kennedy Panter, commander of the schooner New Perseverance. After striking inland for 50 miles, Panter returned to report that the land was furnished with numerous native wells, thickly wooded and endowed with groves of cajeput eucalypts suitable for construction. Overall, Panter concluded the Karajarri lands offered '40,000 acres of splendidly grassed land,' while the natives were 'quiet' and 'friendly'.[32] The area was one the Karajarri call pajalpi or 'spring country' given the richness of its spring waters and the lush growth of local plants there.[33]
History of contact
The Karajarri developed a ceremonial rite (milyankurl) in order to govern the introduction of strangers into their midst, and to pacify the potential for danger in these encounters. They call non indigenous people walanyu (strangers from beyond), a concept that also embraces hostile spirits (wirangu) and other inland aboriginal people. It is thought that East Asian maritime sailors visited their region before the era of white exploration.[3] Generally they would trade and barter with the Asian hired hands working the British pearling luggers, such as the Timorese, Chinese, Malays, Javanese and Japanese.[15] In Karajarri practice, walanyu could drop their outsider status once if the recognized the pirrka, were properly introduced, and had exchanged gifts.[15]
After Panter's report was circulated, the Roebuck Bay Pastoral Company was formed and a ship, the Nile, was commissioned in Freemantle to establish a presence in Karakarri territory, with company representatives and a contingent of police troopers. They set up a camp near Cape Vilaret and appropriated a local well, one of the few on the coast with fresh water. Hostilities broke out, as sorties to take over wells or cut timber were resisted. Attempts to drive them off were repelled for some months, causing the loss of life among some locals.
An expedition led by James Richard Harding (1838–1864), comprising Panter, William Henry Goldwyer (1829–1864) and three police troopers, set out to explore the pajalpi lands suitable for pastoral development south around
Stock routes in the 1880s such as those opened up by Nat Buchanan, who developed the de Grey-Kimberley stockroute, often followed aboriginal dreamtime contours and their sacred watering sites,[38] and, as government inspectors noted, those who took up pastoral leases often then denied native peoples access to the wells on their stations.[35] Eventually the Karajarri and other regional tribes, esp. after the Aborigines Act (1905), were taken on as indentured labour, their local knowledge of the waterways and lay of the land being of great use to the pastoralists.[39]
In the 1930s the anthropologists Ralph Piddington and A. P. Elkin surveyed the water soaks and wells, and their function within Karajarri thought and life.[40]
Native title and development
Following the landmark
The Karajarri Indigenous Protected Area was established in 2014,[45] with the Karajarri Rangers practising fire-stick farming to encourage biodiversity in the area.[46]
Alternative names
- Garadjara
- Garadjari, Karadjeri, Garadjeri
- Karadhari, Garad'are
- Kularupulu.(generic exonymfor their coastal branch and the coastal Karajarri)
- Laradjeri. (misprint).
- Minala. (minal means 'east', used of inland Karajarri social bands)
- Nadja. (coastal Karajarri)
- Nadjanadja
- Naudu. (inlander Karajarri)
- Nawudu. (Yawuru and Nyigina exonym)
- Nawurungainj. (Nyangumarta and Mangalaterm
Source: Tindale 1974, p. 244
Books about Karajarri life and lore
- Liz Thompson, The Danger Seed: Lirrinngkirn Dreaming a Story from Karajarri Country, Pearson Education Australia, 2011
Contemporary Karajarri Music
- Family Shoveller Band, Muntarurru (Black Wasp), Wyirrt Wyirrt (Food of the Country), Wanamulnynong
Notes
- ^ Tindale's estimates particularly for the peoples of the Western desert are not considered to be accurate. (Tonkinson 1989, p. 101)
Citations
- ^ McGregor 2013, p. 44.
- ^ a b Wangka Maya 2016.
- ^ a b Skyring & Yu 2008.
- ^ a b Weir, Stone & Mulardy 2012, p. 99.
- ^ Yu 1999, p. 2.
- ^ McGregor 2013, p. 17.
- ^ a b Bowern 2006, p. 253.
- ^ McGregor 2013, p. 29.
- ^ Bagshaw 2003, p. 32.
- ^ McGregor 2013, p. 124.
- ^ Tindale 1974, p. 244.
- ^ Nekes, Worms & McGregor 2006, p. 44.
- ^ Yu 1999, Appendix 1, p.2.
- ^ Bagshaw 2003, p. 86.
- ^ a b c Skyring & Yu 2008, p. 162.
- ^ Yu 1999, Appendix 1, p.1.
- ^ Prober, O'Connor & Walsh 2011.
- ^ Yu 1999, pp. 16–17.
- ^ a b c Weir, Stone & Mulardy 2012, p. 92.
- ^ Ghassemi & White 2007, p. 391.
- ^ Weir, Stone & Mulardy 2012, p. 83.
- ^ Weir, Stone & Mulardy 2012, p. 91.
- ^ Bagshaw 2003, p. 68.
- ^ Yu 1999, p. 17.
- ^ McGregor 2013, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Yu 1999, p. 16.
- ^ Weir, Stone & Mulardy 2012, p. 96.
- ^ Yu 1999, p. 12.
- ^ Weir 2012, p. 92.
- ^ Yu 1999, p. 11.
- ^ Watson 2014, p. 161.
- ^ Martin & Panter 1864, p. 45.
- ^ Jickling 2006, pp. 29–30.
- ^ Gerritsen 2008, p. 35.
- ^ a b Yu 1999, p. 8.
- ^ Skyring & Yu 2008, pp. 163–163.
- ^ Terry 1931, p. 57.
- ^ Kerwin 2010, p. 162.
- ^ Yu 1999, p. 9.
- ^ Yu 1999, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Tran 2016, pp. 163ff.
- ^ Weir, Stone & Mulardy 2012, p. 84.
- ^ Yu 1999, pp. 10–11.
- ^ Weir, Stone & Mulardy 2012, p. 87.
- ^ "Karajarri Indigenous Protected Area". Karajarri Traditional Lands Association. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
- ^ Collins, Ben (11 May 2021). "New light in a land shaped by fire". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
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- Jickling, Bob (2006). Environmental Education, Ethics & Action: A Workbook to Get Started. ISBN 978-9-280-72656-5.
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- Kerwin, Dale (2010). Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trading Routes: The Colonisation of the Australian Economic Landscape. ISBN 978-1-845-19338-6.
- Lowe, Pat (2005). "You call its desert..we used to live there". In Rose, Deborah Bird; Davis, Richard (eds.). Dislocating the Frontier: Essaying the Mystique of the Outback. ISBN 978-1-920-94237-3.
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