Southern Kaurna Place Names Essays
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Item Open Access Kadlatiyangga(Chester Schultz, 2021-07-19) Schultz, ChesterKadlatiangga (New Spelling Kadlatiyangga) was the ‘Kaurna’-Miyurna name adopted in 1849-50 for John Heathcote’s station in Wattle Flat, in the Anglicized spelling ‘Cudlatiyunga’. It had probably been obtained by the first surveyors in 1840 from ‘Kaurna’-Miyurna guides, who would have applied it to an unknown site on the station or nearby. Although Heathcote received no official land grants until 1851 and we do not yet know exactly where his station was in the 1840s, it may have been on Section 417, Hundred of Myponga,1 immediately north of the Bowyer Bridge crossing at Carrickalinga Creek. The name means ‘gap-tooth place’; but we do not know what this referred to: possibly a nearby feature of the landscape, or an unrecorded Dreaming story, or both.Item Open Access Karrawatungga(Chester Schultz, 2021-07-01) Schultz, ChesterKarrawatungga was a ‘Kaurna’-Miyurna name recorded in the 1840s with a variety of spellings by four settlers (John Clarke, the Boord brothers, George Foreman and John Heathcote senior). They all used it to refer to the locality which they were occupying between Myponga valley and the Yankalilla plain, i.e. the northern half of the valley now known as Wattle Flat, covering the vicinity of Sections 410 northeast to 495, Hundred of Myponga. 1 The exact location of the original Kaurna site is unknown.Item Open Access Witjalangk(Chester Schultz, 2021-05-18) Schultz, ChesterWitjalangk is the Ramindjeri name given in 1934 by Reuben Walker for ‘Port Noarlunga’, according to Tindale’s notes from interviews with him and a typescript copied by Mark Wilson from Walker’s manuscript. Walker was then in his 70s, remembering the period between the 1860s and perhaps the 1890s. He had lived among the “Ramingeri” most of his life, and believed that they “had been a powerful tribe”, having a large territory with “a sea front from Port Noarlunga to the Murray Mouth”, including the whole of Fleurieu Peninsula, and inland to Clarendon. He also believed that “Wicharlung” (Witjalangk) marked a border between Ramindjeri hunting lands and their tawuli, i.e. adjacent hunting lands belonging to a different clan but allowing special mutual permissions to travel and hunt; and that these tawuli lands extended north to ‘Brighton’Item Open Access Tainbarangk(Chester Schultz, 2021-04-19) Schultz, ChesterAlthough the mouth and estuary area of the Onkaparinga River was part of Kaurna Language Country in the 1830s, no Kaurna name for it is definitely known. But Tayinbariangk or Tainbarangk was a name used by the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri for the whole estuary, loosely described as ‘Port Noarlunga’, up to the western edge of the ‘Horseshoe’ loop of the river at Old Noarlunga. It is probably a fully-Ngarrindjeri name which means ‘place of arriving’.Item Open Access Pirrangga(Chester Schultz, 2021-07-09) Schultz, ChesterPirrangga (Old Spelling Birrangga) is the Kaurna name of a small relatively flat area around Section 1, Hundred of Noarlunga;1 centred on the shallow valley of an extinct creek. This named place probably extends from a little north of Beach Rd and a little west of Dyson Rd almost to the Colonnades shopping centre, down to and along Goldsmith Drive (i.e. comprising all of Section 1 and adjacent parts of 2, 661, 660, 659 and 310). The name and location were obtained in 1839 by Louis Piesse during the first surveys of the area, no doubt from Kaurna employees of the Survey Department who accompanied the teams as guides, interpreters and helpers with bush tucker. Pirrangga means ‘place of lung-passion, anger, or inclination to fight’. This may refer to an unrecorded traditional use of the place for warrior-like challenges and protocols with visiting groups, some of whom might come from distant Country via the major travel hub at Ngangkiparingga (the ford at Old Noarlunga), might sometimes be hostile, and in any case would need permission to be on this territory. The campsites at the dunes in Port Noarlunga, overlooked by the low ridge on the southwestern edge of Pirrangga, were less than 2 km away. An old burial site was discovered in 2011 a few hundred metres south of Pirrangga. An Appendix to this essay gives an annotated first-hand account of an incident in February 1837 near Pirrangga and at Port Noarlunga, which fortuitously illustrates some of those protocols.Item Open Access Punduwalluwatingg(Chester Schultz, 2013-06-11) Schultz, Chester‘Punduwallu-watingg’ is a name of uncertain language, probably a combined adaptation by the Ramindjeri of the Kaurna names Parndalilla (see PNS 3/06) and Wita-wattingga (see PNS 2/21). It was recorded in the early 1840s from Ramindjeri informants who had visited Adelaide, and referred to the area around ‘Tapley’s Hill’ (i.e. the northern side of O’Halloran Hill). The location was given as “neighbourhood of Tapley’s” (his land extended right across the crest of Tapley’s Hill, including his Victoria Hotel). This was deep inside Kaurna-speaking lands. Parndalilla was also on Tapley’s Hill, and Wita-wattingga was around Seacliff Park just below Parndalilla. Wattinga in Kaurna means ‘in the middle, between, on account of’. Ngarrindjeri words rarely end in a, and adaptation by the Ngarrindjeri would probably omit the final a, leaving it similar to their standard Ngarrindjeri locatives -angk, -ong, etc. The language of Punduwallu is uncertain and the meaning is unknownItem Open Access ?Purtawarti / ?Purtartilla / ?Purditilla (Ochre Cover)(Chester Schultz, 2020-07-10) Schultz, ChesterNo Aboriginal name was recorded at first contact for Ochre Cove (often called Red Ochre Cove). In the 1930s ethnologists recorded two Ngarrindjeri names for Ochre Cove: “Putawatang” from the Ramindjeri man Reuben Walker, and “`Poţ`artang” (or “Putatang”) from the Yaraldi man Albert Karlowan. Both men believed that the word they gave meant ‘red ochre’; but this is not so, as neither word matches any Ngarrindjeri or Kaurna vocabulary for ‘ochre’. Ochre Cove was the major source of valuable red ochre for a very large area of south-eastern Australia south of the Flinders Ranges. As a consequence it was an important centre of trade to and from the upper River Murray and Victoria. It also contained one of the springs created by the culture hero Tjirbuki when he stopped here to weep over his murdered nephew, in the course of his journey southward carrying the smoke-dried body.Item Open Access Mitiwarti(Chester Schultz, 2020-03-26) Schultz, ChesterMitiwarti (in KWP’s New Spelling 2010) is the Kaurna name for a place on the Gawler River, or perhaps the South Para, in the vicinity of the junction with the North Para; i.e. somewhere on Sections 1, 2, 3 or 24, Hundred of Mudla Wirra. It was recorded as “Mete Watte River” by Colonel Light in December 1837, as he began to explore the Gawler and South Para Rivers, beginning a short distance downstream from the junction. Miti means ‘hip, thigh, upper leg’, and is used also to refer to ‘someone who climbs’. ‘Watte’ could represent either of two separate words which may be homophones, both spelled warti (KWP New Spelling): (1) watte OR warte, ‘middle, cause, origin’ and ‘reason’; or (2) worti, ‘tail or penis’.Item Open Access Pangkarla and Aboriginal history around Normanville and the Bungala River(Chester Schultz, 2020-03-05) Schultz, ChesterPangkalla or Pangkarla (New Spelling Pangkala or Pangkarla) might probably be the Kaurna name for an area around the lowest reaches of the Bungala River near the mouth (Sections 1012, 1014, 1015, and 260). The creek flows through today’s town of Yankalilla about 4 km from the mouth, and enters the sea at Normanville. The name ‘Bungala’ was originally obtained in 1839-40 by the first surveyors of this part of District F (Kentish and Poole), no doubt from Kaurna-speaking Aboriginal guides whom they brought with them from Adelaide. Phonetically the original Kaurna word could very likely be the Kaurna word Pangkarla, ‘two lagoons’.Item Open Access Nganpangga(Chester Schultz, 2020-05-12) Schultz, ChesterThe Kaurna name Nganpangga probably refers to Chandler’s Hill (the hill itself, not the suburb). It was recorded in 1844 as ‘Unbunga’, the name of the property on Section 5581 occupied by Charles Chandler but owned by the South Australian Company. The meaning of the name is unknown. This massive separate hill was a landmark for early settlers, who named it after its one early occupant, Chandler. Its summit on Sections 270, 272 and 273 (around the intersection of Chandlers Hill Rd and Sugarloaf Rd) was a crossroad for Kaurna, Peramangk and Ngarrindjeri travellers, and remains so for settlers too up to this day. In both pre-contact and post-contact times, it could lead north to Adelaide; or southwest to Old Noarlunga; or east to Mt Barker in Peramangk country; or south to Clarendon, a popular campsite and hub which led via Meadows to Ngarrindjeri land southeast on Lake Alexandrina or south at Goolwa.Item Open Access ‘Cowyrlanka’ / ?Kauwiyarlungga (Second Valley)(Chester Schultz, 2020-01-26) Schultz, ChesterIn 1838 the explorer Stephen Hack, travelling on foot from Adelaide to Encounter Bay, Rapid Bay and back, twice recorded a Kaurna place-name as “Cowyrlanka”, “about one mile” north of Rapid Bay. No doubt he heard it from a Kaurna-speaking Aboriginal guide. The name certainly refers to the mouth area and/or lower valley of the Parananacooka River at Second Valley (roughly Sections 1553, 1554, and 1567). Hack’s spelling certainly represents a Kaurna compound word, one of a number of possibilities which are very hard to decide between. In a balance between linguistic and landscape interpretations, the most likely are Kauwi-yarlungga (‘place of fresh water and sea’) or Kauwayarlungga (‘place of cliffs and sea’), both of which would make clear references to features of the place. The place was on the well-used Aboriginal route between major campsites to the north at Yarnauwingga (Wirrina Cove area) and Yarnkalyilla (mouth of the Yankalilla River), 3 and 10 km respectively, and to the south at Yarta-kurlangga (Rapid Bay, 3 km on foot over the ridges). ‘Cowyrlanka’ offered a very good freshwater pool or tiny lagoon at the river mouth, fed by springs around the Parananacooka River upstream, and bordered by useful reeds and rushes; a small shallow bay ideal for net-fishing, as shown in the famous painting by George French Angas in 1844; a magnificent fire-managed hunting ground nearby in the grassy valley; sheltered campsites on or immediately above the beach; and good lookout sites nearby on the high cliffs.Item Open Access ?Kangkarrartingga (River Congeratinga)(Chester Schultz, 2019-07-22) Schultz, ChesterThe earliest explicit record of this name was the ‘River Congeratinga’ marked on the first maps based on the work of the first surveyors of District D (around Yankalilla) in 1840. However, there is indirect evidence to suggest that Samuel Stephens in 1838 might have obtained the name ‘Congerati’ somewhere in District D, even though he wrote only of ‘Conderati’ (see Appendix). The ‘Yankalilla Surveys used Aboriginal guides, probably hired in Adelaide, who no doubt gave the name; and Stephens presumably likewise. The word must be in Kaurna language, since it ends with the standard Kaurna Locative ngga (‘at, place of’). The root noun represented by ‘Congerati’ is unknown in any local language as it stands; but must be a Compound of two words, probably also contracted (since no known vocabulary fits the whole word as it is). Among several possible but uncertain etymologies, the most likely is Kanggarri-karti, contracted to Kanggarr’arti, ‘human birthing blood’ (New Spelling 2010 Kangkarrikarti, Kangkarr’arti).Item Open Access Yarnauwingga(Chester Schultz, 2019-07-09) Schultz, ChesterYarnauwingga was the Kaurna name for an area within and immediately surrounding the current property of Wirrina Resort (2019); or perhaps of a site within this area. The name is a contraction of Yarna-kauwingga, ‘bald [or naked] water-place’. This almost certainly refers to (1) the many sources of fresh water in this area, and (2) ‘bald’ or relatively bald hills around it, especially on areas with very shallow soil over hard rock. Early descriptions tend to confirm that this area contained significant stretches of grassland with few trees, even before settlement. The area called Yarnauwingga by its Aboriginal occupants was known to 19th-century settlers as a district called ‘Poole’s Flat’. Local historian Lucy Webb in 1919 recorded it as the Aboriginal name of ‘Pool’s Flat’, “Yarnouinga”, from the memories of an unnamed lady who was “living at this place in 1854.” In this context Webb wrote that ‘Yarnouinga’ was “a great meeting place” for Aboriginal people, which is likely from its combination of terrain and resources.Item Open Access Anacotilla(Chester Schultz, 2019-07-22) Schultz, ChesterItem Open Access Wirrina(Chester Schultz, 2019-06-03) Schultz, Chester‘Wirrina’, the name of a holiday resort between Little Gorge and Second Valley, is not a Kaurna word, nor does it belong to any other local language. It is an Aboriginal word adopted in 1972 by the resort developers Holiday Village Co-operative Ltd, who almost certainly took it from HM Cooper’s publication Australian Aboriginal Words and their meanings (1949, 2nd edition 1952), where it was listed as “Wirrina – Somewhere to go”. This word probably comes from an interstate language group, possibly around the Gwydir and Barwon rivers. Other ‘meanings’ given for this place-name in the literature – ‘forest place’ and ‘place of rest’ – have no historical or linguistic credibility. No spelling ‘wirrina’ (or possible variants) is known in South Australian literature before 1972, except as a misprint for ‘Warrina’ (the name of a hamlet on the old Great Northern Railway line to Oodnadatta).Item Open Access Brukangga and Tindale's uses of the word bruki(Chester Schultz, 2018-10-26) Schultz, ChesterAt the date of last editing (above), we can be fairly sure that in times of first contact ‘Brookunga’ (phonetic spelling Brukangga) was an ‘outsider’ name for a deposit of iron pyrites in the southern Mt Lofty Ranges; it was on Section 5279, Hundred of Kanmantoo; and it meant ‘place of fire’, with a secondary reference to pyrites. However, none of these propositions is yet proved beyond all reasonable doubt. The name was first drawn to public attention in 1952 as a new name officially bestowed on a new settlement on Section 5279 for workers at the proposed Nairne Pyrites Mine. The Nomenclature Committee reported that “during the original survey” of this area the name “Brookunga” had been recorded on “a creek running through the section” (i.e. Dawesley Creek, which also contained the northern part of the large pyrites deposit); or perhaps on “the creek running through the area”. After consultation with NB Tindale and the Mt Barker District Council, the name was gazetted in the spelling “Brukunga”.Item Open Access Karrawadlungga(Chester Schultz, 2020-08-13) Schultz, ChesterIn 1839 William Williams (Colonial Storekeeper in Adelaide) recorded “Cur-ra-ud-lon-ga” as the name of “Lyndoch valley” (presumably a site somewhere within it, between the town of Lyndoch and the end of the valley near Williamstown). He almost certainly obtained it while interpreting for a police expedition in April 1839 which was tracking members of the ‘Wirra tribe’ who had murdered shepherd Duffield at Teatree Gully. It is a Kaurna word, using the standard Locative ngga; but its meaning is uncertain, especially because the interpretation of Williams’ written letter ‘o’ is ambiguous. It might very likely be Karrawadlungga, ‘place of underbrush and shrubs’, i.e. low understorey in a forest. But it could also be Karra-wadlangga, ‘place of fallen redgum trees’ or ‘place of high deadwood’; or Karrawadlhangga, ‘place of redgums and wallabies’. However, it was probably not a genuine place-name of the occupants of that territory, the ‘Wirra tribe’, who were not necessarily Kaurna speakers. It was probably a Kaurna generic name for that kind of country, given by trackers including Kadlitpinna (‘Captain Jack’), who belonged to country further south.Item Open Access 'Taperoo'(Chester Schultz, 2018-05-14) Schultz, Chester‘Taperoo’, the gazetted name of a suburb and railway station on Lefevre Peninsula in Adelaide, is not a Kaurna word. In 1920 the SA government’s Nomenclature Committee took it from a 1912 newspaper citation of Aboriginal words which had been lifted from unknown wordlists for use by settlers in naming their properties. The Committee used it to re-name an existing railway siding which was then serving the new housing development of Silicate Beach – which in turn had been named after the Silicate Brick Company operating a few years earlier near the site of today’s Taperoo Railway Station. Although at first contact the Kaurna-speaking women of the Adelaide Plains beat a possum-skin pad or ‘drum’ called tapurro (New Spelling tapurru) in their corroborees, and although this word could easily be spelled ‘taperoo’ by a linguistically untrained settler, there is no evidence to support the idea that this local word was ever used as a place-name, nor that it had any special association with the place now called Taperoo.Item Open Access Yarta-Kurlangga(Chester Schultz, 2018-08-21) Schultz, ChesterYarta-kurlangga was the Kaurna name of a small area centred on the well-favoured campsites at Rapid Bay, around the mouth of what we know today as the Yattagolinga River. Yarta means 'earth, land, country'. Here kurla (a word with a range of recorded meanings) probably means ‘separate’ and/or ‘last’. The name therefore means ‘place of the separate or last land’. This may refer to the remote and rather separate position of Rapid Bay away from the bigger population centres and frequently-used travel routes, and perhaps to a tendency of the resident groups here to be more socially isolated than others. The name was obtained onsite by Colonel Light’s survey team in 1836, from people of the ‘Cape Jervis tribe’ (i.e. the tribe of Fleurieu Peninsula) whose members included a woman known to us only as ‘Doughboy’. She was the ‘wife’ of Kangaroo Island sealer Cooper when Light hired both of them for his first survey voyage up the east coast of St Vincent’s Gulf.Item Open Access Kauwa-Yarlungga (Myponga Beach)(Chester Schultz, 2019-03-00) Schultz, ChesterKauwa-yerlongga (Kauwa-yarlungga in KWP New Spelling 2010), meaning ‘place of cliffs and sea’, is probably the correct interpretation of the Kaurna name for the vicinity of the Myponga river estuary at Myponga Beach, with its wetland and cliffs, on Sections 687, 688 and 683 (Hundred of Myponga). It was recorded as “Coweyalunga” in 1850, “Cowiealunga” in the 1870s, and “Coweelunga” in 1887. The last of these (incorrectly suggesting a four-syllable word rather than five) was probably a mis-transcription of the lost original record by surveyors in 1840, who must have obtained it from their Kaurna-speaking guides. Kauwayarlungga has been neglected in the literature of place-names and Aboriginal history; but it seems to have been a significant destination in its own right, a focus for travel routes from the north, south and east. It was used for sheltered camping, fishing (with a rocky shore for shellfish), for corroborees, and (it is said) had a burial site. It was one of the campsites used by Aboriginal people in their spring and summer movement up the Gulf coast following the fish runs (bream, mullet, salmon and mulloway).