Their traditional land encompassed much of the upper Eyre peninsula, including Port Lincoln, Whyalla and the lands west of Port Augusta. The Barngarla people traditionally lived by the coast and visited inland seasonally and for ceremonial and special purposes.[5] The Barngarla native title claim compromises 44,481 square km, or about two-thirds of the Eyre peninsula.[6] In 2015 this claim was upheld[7] and in 2023 the barngarla people won a federal court decision to prevent a nuclear waste disposal facility from being built on their land.[8]
Barngarla people traditionally wore cloaks made from kangaroo skin and mainly hunted for seafood, but also caught kangaroo, emu, snakes and various lizards depending on seasonality. Nondo beans (thought to be Acacia sophorae seeds[9] ) and pigface (carpobrotus modestus) were especially prized food items.[5] a book entitled Wardlada Mardinidhi documents the location and names of barngarla medical plants.[10]
Barngarla Dreaming is heavily centred on a large mythic complex known as the Seven Sisters. The primary male spiritual figure in that narrative is named Yulanya from which the Uley, Yeelanna, Yallunda Flat, along with the smaller localities of Yallunna, Yulina, and Palanna Fountain on the Eyre Peninsula derive their names.[9]
A practice known as "singing to the sharks" was an important ritual in Barngarla culture. The performance consisted of men lining the cliffs of bays in the Eyre peninsula and singing out, while their chants were accompanied by women dancing on the beach. The aim was to enlist sharks and dolphins in driving shoals of fish towards the shore where fishers in the shallows could make their catch.[11]
Just prior to invasion by the English 'free settlers', the Barngarla were under pressure from the Kokatha, who were on the move southwards, forcing the Barngarla to retreat from their traditional northern boundaries. One effect was to cut off their access to certain woods used in spear-making, so that they finally had to forage as far as Tumby Bay to get supplies of whipstick mallee ash.[12]
The barngarla and Nauo people were engaged in more clashes with European settlers then any other people in South Australia following the colonisation of the state. During the decade following the establishment of Port Lincoln in 1839 the barngarla attacked pastoral stations with local settlers conducting vigilante killings and police retaliating indiscriminately.[13] This undeclared war between white sellers and the barngarla people continued until at least 1862.[14] Barngarla people are one of the many indigenous groups which contain an oral-history of the Waterloo Bay massacre, where up to 260 Barngarla, Nauo, Kokatha and Wirangu may have been driven off cliffs into the sea.
In 1850 both the Barngarla School, operated by Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann, and the first Anglican mission were set up at Poonindie on the Tod River within barngarla land.[13] Living conditions at Pooninidie were basic with no running water, over-crowding and a lack of food and medicine. In 1894, the mission had closed and the majority of residents were moved onto Point Pearce and Point McLeay missions, although some stayed on their land.[15] The barngarla community was deeply affected by the Aborigines Act 1911 which lead to the Stolen Generations and the loss of Barngarla as a first language.
Barngarla was the dominant language of the eyre peninsula prior to European settlement. the last fluent speaker was reported to have died in the 1960s,[11] although some Barngarla members of the Stolen Generation retained knowledge of their language through lyrics in songs.[16]
Israeli linguist Professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann contacted the Barngarla community in 2011 proposing to revive it, the project of reclamation being accepted enthusiastically by people of Barngarla descent. Workshops to this end were started in Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta in 2012.[17] The reclamation is based on 170-year-old documents.[18]
The Barngarla had two tribal divisions: the northern Wartabanggala ranged from north of Port Augusta to Ogden Hill and the vicinity of Quorn and Beltana; a southern branch, the Malkaripangala, lived down the western side of the Spencer Gulf.[12] Referred to as Pangkala, the Barngarla have also been included in the grouping currently known as the Adnyamathanha people.[19]
In 1844 the missionary C. W. Schürmann stated that the Barngarla were divided into two classes, the Mattiri and Karraru.[20] This was criticized by the ethnographer R. H. Mathews, who, surveying South Australian tribes, argued that Schürmann had mixed them up, and that the proper divisions, which he called phratries shared by all these tribes was as follows:[21]
Phratry
Husband
Wife
Offspring
A
Kirrarroo
Matturri
Matturri
B
Matturri
Kirraroo
Kirraroo
The Barngarla practised both circumcision and subincision.[12]
Barngarla native title
On 22 January 2015 the Barngarla people were granted native title over much of Eyre Peninsula. They had applied for 44,500 square kilometres (11,000,000 acres) and received most of it.[b][22]
On 24 September 2021 they were granted native title over the city of Port Augusta, after a protracted 25-year old battle. Justice Natalie Charlesworth presided over the sitting.[23]
wárraidyailyarranha "a lot of emus", "heaps of emus" (superplural)[26]: 228
wárraidyalbili "two emus" (dual)
wárraidyarri "emus" (plural)
Notes
^Tribal boundaries, after Tindale (1974), adapted from Hercus (1999).
^Judge Mansfield wrote:'The fact that Barngarla language is now being relearnt by some claimants, due to the work of Adelaide University academic Ghil'ad Zuckermann, is not evidence of continuity of the Barngarla language, although it is evidence of continuity of a notion of Barngarla identity, a notion that clearly existed amongst the Barngarla community at 1846, when Barngarla people told Schürmann of the "Barngarla matta", and which can thus be inferred to have existed at sovereignty.' (Mansfield 2015)
^These three distinct terms for the one species are thought to have designated nuances whose differential meanings are no longer known (Goldsworthy 2014).
Citations
^Barngarla Language Advisory Committee (16 October 2016). "Barngarla Dictionary". Definition of barngarlidi. Barngarla Language Advisory Committee. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
^ abCane, Scott (23 June 2020). Cane, Scott (ed.). A Cultural Heritage Investigation(PDF). A Cultural Heritage Investigation of the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex.
^Morrison, Jane (5 October 2022). "Some Known Conflicts in South Australia". Australian Frontier Conflicts. Australian Frontier Conflicts Website. Retrieved 6 October 2023. 1862 - Venus Bay, 60 kms south-east of Streaky Bay
Le Souef, A. A. C; Holden, R.W. (1886). "Port Lincoln"(PDF). In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent. Vol. 2. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 8–9 – via Internet Archive.
Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Pangkala(SA)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN978-0-708-10741-6. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
