Nukunuare anAboriginal Australianpeople ofSouth Australia,living around theSpencer Gulfarea. In the years afterBritish colonisation of South Australia,the area was developed to contain the cities ofPort PirieandPort Augusta.
Name
editBoth theNgaiawangpeople of theLower Murrayand the Adelaide region'sKaurnaused their variant pronunciation for the Nukuni,nokunnoandnokuna,to signify an assassin, a mythical figure who was given to roaming about at night in search of people to kill.[1][2]
Language
editNukunu language,together withNgadjuri,with which it has a 90% overlap, is broadly classified byLuise Hercus,following the taxonomy ofWilhelm Schmidt,as belonging to the Miru cluster of theThura-Yura languages.[3]
Country
edit
According toNorman Tindale's calculations, the Nukunu possessed approximately 2,200 square miles (5,700 km2) of tribal land. This lay on the eastern side ofSpencer Gulf,from a point just north of the mouth of theBroughton Riverand the vicinity ofCrystal BrooktoPort Augusta.Their eastern extension ran toMelrose,Mount Remarkable,Gladstone,andQuorn,and they were also present atBaroota.[1]
Native title
editIn 2019, the Nukunu people were grantednative titleoverPort Pirieand part of theFlinders Ranges.On 3 February 2022, after a protracted 28-year dispute over boundaries, they were also given title over a large area east of Port Augusta by a sitting of theFederal Court of Australia.Only one of the original claimants,elderLindsay Thomas, was still alive. This area borders an area granted to theBarngarla people[4]in September 2021. All three court sittings and decisions were presided over by JusticeNatalie Charlesworth.[5]
Social customs
editThe Nukunu were the southeasternmost tribe that adopted not only circumcision but alsosubincision[6]as part of their rite of initiating young males into full tribal status. The Nukunu took pride in being "ritual purists".[2][7]
A. P. Elkinestablished that the Nukunu represented the most southeasterly tribe maintaining a matrilinealmoiety system,involving two marriage moieties, theMathariand theKararru.The system was essentially akin to that existing among theBarngarla,AdnyamathanhaandWailpi.[8][2]
Culture
editThe Nukunu land was full ofsacred sites,and formed the starting point for the longestsonglineregistered in Australia, theUrumbulasongline. This songline extends from alarge tree,representing also theMilky Way,said to stand near the present day Port Augusta Hospital (Point Augusta) northwards right to theGulf of Carpentaria.The story cycle dealt with the wanderings of thewestern quoll.TheArerrntecentral desert people retain details of the mythical events that are located far south, in Nukunu tribal lands.[9]
History of contact
editColonisation of the area began in 1849, and a late estimate is that the tribe consisted of between 50 and 100 people. Before this, it is thought that the Nukunu had been ravaged by the spread ofsmallpoxfrom theMurray River,some two decades earlier.[10]The subsequent transformation of the land for pastoral and wheat-growing purposes devastated the Nukunu.[11]
Peter Ferguson andWilliam Younghusbandtook up a "run"of some 560 square miles (1,500 km2) fromThalpiri,now known asPort Pirie,toCrystal Brook,which was stocked with 25,000 sheep and 3400 cattle.[12]In late June 1852 Ferguson rounded up seven Nukunu after pursuing them to retrieve 54 sheep that had been taken from his flocks and they were remanded atClare County Courtfor trial in Adelaide, but were released after two months when no plaintiffs appeared to assist the prosecution.[13]In 1854, after cattle had been pilfered, Ferguson, together with his stockmen, killed a group of local Aboriginal people at Crystal Brook.[11]Writing in 1880, J. C. Valentine stated that only eight Nukunu had survived these radical upheavals, five men and three women; the rest, in his view, had expired fromphthisis.[10]
This enclosure of their tribal lands for pastoralism led to the dispossession, and decimation,[14]of the Nukunu from the end of the 1840s onwards, and small remnants took refuge in scattered camps aroundOrroroo,Melrose,Wilmington,Stirling North,and Baroota.[2][7]Some Nukunu managed to keep alive their direct attachment to their traditional lands by remaining atPort Germein,the Baroota reserve set aside for them, and atPort Augusta.[14]With their fragmentation and dispersion, they could no longer adhere to their rigorous rules, and subsequently intermarried with people withNarungga,Barngarla andWirangudescent, while maintaining a keen sense of their Nukunu identity.[2]
Alternative names
editSome words
editNotable Nukunu people
edit- Jared Thomas,author, academic and museum curator
Footnotes
edit- ^Hercus comments: "Black calls the language 'Wongaidya', but this is simply his rendering ofwangkatyathe present tense form of the verb 'to speak'. "(Hercus 1992,p. 9)
- ^In Valentine this is given asbingera.(Valentine 1886,p. 138)
- ^Valentine givesmungier.(Valentine 1886,p. 138)
- ^Valentine gavekudla.(Valentine 1886,p. 138)
- ^Valentine gavegardleyfor tame dog, andquanafor wild dog. (Valentine 1886,p. 138)
- ^Valentine wroteludlaw.Luise Hercus commenting on this text wrote: 'There is a brief vocabulary from Mount Remarkable, which is in the heart of Nukunu country, but Curr states (2:136) that he got the material from a Mr J. C. Valentine who had himself got it at second hand from "a gentleman well acquainted with the tribe", and he complains of the manuscript being indistinct. There is no question that it is a vocabulary of the same language as recorded by O'Grady and by Hercus and by its early date it helps to validate Nukunu. The person who wrote down the vocabulary had trouble hearing certain sounds and used an inconsistent anglicised transcription, which is difficult to interpret: e.g. he wrote "uree" foryuṛi( "ear" ), "ounga" foryunga( "elder brother" ) and "ludlaw" foryartli( "father" (i.e. "man" )).' Hercus also givesmaama,var.mamarafor father. (Hercus 1992,pp. 9, 21)
References
editCitations
edit- ^abcTindale 1974,p. 216.
- ^abcdefHercus 1992,p. 11.
- ^Hercus 1992,pp. 1–2.
- ^Roberts, Georgia; Aeria, Gillian (3 February 2022)."Nukunu people win native title fight after 28 years of struggle".ABC News.Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Retrieved13 February2022.
- ^Roberts, Georgia; Gooch, Declan (24 September 2021)."Barngarla people granted native title over Port Augusta after 25-year fight".ABC News.Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Retrieved13 February2022.
- ^Hercus 1992,p. 23.
- ^abJauncey 2004,p. 12.
- ^Elkin 1938a,pp. 421, 427–439.
- ^Hercus 1992,p. 13.
- ^abcValentine 1886,p. 136.
- ^abEklund 2012,p. 101.
- ^Ferguson 2012.
- ^Cockburn 1974,pp. 142–143.
- ^abKrichauff 2017,p. 41.
- ^Hack & Taplin 1879,p. 64.
- ^Hercus 1992,p. 21.
- ^Hercus 1992,p. 24.
- ^Hercus 1992,p. 25.
- ^Hercus 1992,pp. 20, 26, 31, 40.
Sources
edit- Black, J. M.(1917)."Vocabularies of three South Australian languages—Wirrung, Narrinyeri and Wongaidya".Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia.41.Adelaide: 1–8.
- Cockburn, Rodney(1974). Aldersey, A. Dorothy (ed.).Pastoral Pioneers of South Australia(PDF).Vol. 1. Blackwood: Lynton Publications.
- Condon, H. T.(July 1955a)."Aboriginal bird names -South Australia Part 1"(PDF).South Australian Ornithologist.21(6/7). Adelaide: 74–88.
- Condon, H. T.(October 1955b)."Aboriginal bird names - South Australia Part 2"(PDF).South Australian Ornithologist.21(8). Adelaide: 91–98.
- Eklund, Erik (2012).Mining Towns: Making a Living, Making a Life.University of New South Wales Press.ISBN978-1-742-24111-1.
- Elkin, A. P.(September 1931). "Social organisation of South Australian tribes".Oceania.2(1): 44–73.doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1931.tb00022.x.JSTOR40327353.
- Elkin, A. P.(June 1938a). "Kinship in South Australia".Oceania.8(2): 419–452.doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1938.tb00434.x.JSTOR40327684.
- Elkin, A. P.(September 1938b). "Kinship in South Australia (Continued)".Oceania.9(1): 41–78.doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1938.tb00216.x.JSTOR40327699.
- Elkin, A. P.(December 1939). "Kinship in South Australia (Continued)".Oceania.10(2): 196–234.doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1939.tb00276.x.JSTOR40327736.
- Elkin, A. P.(June 1940). "Kinship in South Australia (Continued)".Oceania.10(4): 369–388.doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1940.tb00302.x.JSTOR40327864.
- Gray, J. (1930)."Notes on native tribe formerly resident at Orroroo, South Australia".The South Australian Naturalist.12(1): 4–6.
- Hack, Bedford;Taplin, George(1879). "The Mount Remarkable Tribe".Folklore, manners, customs and languages of the South Australian aborigines(PDF).Adelaide: E Spiller, Acting Government Printer. pp. 64–66, 142–152.
- Hercus, Luise Anna(1992).A Nukunu Dictionary(PDF).AIATSIS.ISBN978-0-646-10460-7.
- Jauncey, Dorothy (2004).Bardi Grubs and Frog Cakes: South Australian Words.Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-195-51770-5.
- Krichauff, Skye (2017).Memory, Place and Aboriginal-Settler History: Understanding Australians' Consciousness of the Colonial Past.Anthem Press.ISBN978-1-783-08682-5.
- Mathews, R. H.(1900). "Divisions of the South Australian Aborigines".Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.39(161): 78–91.JSTOR983545.
- Moorhouse, M.(1846).A vocabulary, and outline of the grammatical structure of the Murray River language: spoken by the natives of South Australia, from Wellington on the Murray, as far as the Rufus(PDF).Andrew Murray.
- "S.A. Northern Pioneers: P. Ferguson".State Library of South Australia.2012.
- Teichelmann, Christian Gottlieb;Schürmann, Clamor Wilhelm(1840).Outlines of a grammar, vocabulary, and phraseology of the Aboriginal language of South Australia spoken by the native in and for some distance around Adelaide(PDF).Adelaide.
- Tindale, Norman Barnett(1974)."Nukunu (SA)".Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names.Australian National University Press.ISBN978-0-708-10741-6.
- Valentine, J. C. (1886).Curr, Edward Micklethwaite(ed.).Mount Remarkable(PDF).Vol. 2. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 136–139.
- Wilhelmi, Charles(1860)."Manners and customs of the Australian natives, in particular of the Port Lincoln district"(PDF).Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria.5.Melbourne: 164–203.