Witjalangk

Abstract

Witjalangk 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’