Arabana people

Performance of tritichinna ceremony of snake totem, Urabunna Tribe, Lake Eyre (pub. in The commonwealth of Australia; federal handbook, prepared in connection with the eighty-fourth meeting of the British association for the advancement of science, held in Australia, August, 1914 by George Handley Knibbs

The Arabana, also known as the Ngarabana, are an indigenous Australian people of South Australia.

Name

The older tribal autonym was Ngarabana, which may have been misheard by white settlers as Arabana, the term now generally accepted by new generations of the Ngarabana.

Language

Arabana, like Wangganguru with which it shares a 90% overlap in vocabulary, is a member of the Karnic subgroup of the Pama-Nyungan language.

Country

In Norman Tindale's estimation, the Arabana controlled some 19,500 square miles (51,000 km²) of tribal land. They were present at the Neales River to the west of Lake Eyre, and west as far as the Stuart Range; Macumba Creek. Southwards their lands extended to Coward Springs. Their terrain also took in Oodnadatta, Lora Creek and Lake Cadibarrawirracanna.

The neighbouring tribes were the Kokata to the west, with the frontier between the two marked by the scarp of the western tableland near Coober Pedy. To their east were the Wangkanguru.

Mythology

Several traditional stories are well documented, especially that regarding a man-eating Buzzard and his Eaglehawk mate. The chief protagonists are three animals: (1) Wantu Wantu, the man-eating Black-breasted Buzzard; (2) Irritye or Irretye, a friendly Wedge-tailed Eagle; and (3) Kutta Kutta(variantly called Akwete Akwete) who, though described as a small hawk is actually the Spotted nightjar.

History of Contact

The Arabana were visited by Baldwin Spencer and Francis James Gillen in 1903 for a specific purpose. Their earlier work had argued that the truly 'primitive' nature of the Arrernte was indicated by the fact that their totemic identities came from the spirit responsible for making individuals’ mothers pregnant. James Frazer adopted this to buttress his theories on the development phases of 'primitive societies’. A Scottish amateur ethnographer Andrew Lang contested their interpretations of the Arrernte, arguing that they were not ‘primitive’, a label he argued was more appropriate to their near neighbours the Arabana, who traced descent through the mother and linked their totemic system to exogamy. It was to address this challenge that accounted for Spencer and Gillen’s return to Arabana lands, whose elders they interviewing Old Peake Station and Thantyiwanparda in the nearby gidgee scrub.

Social organisation

The Arabana were divided into hordes, whose respective territories were called wadlu.

• Jendakarangu (Coward Springs)
• Peake tribe
• Anna Creek tribe

Their moieties were named Mathari and Kararru.

Alternative names

• Ngarabana
• Arabuna, Arrabunna, Arrabonna, Arubbinna
• Arapina. (Iliaura pronunciation)
• Arapani
• Urapuna, Urabuna, Urabunna, Urroban
• Rabuna (an occasional Aranda pronunciation)
• Wangarabana. ([a term reflecting a word woqka /wagka meaning 'speech')
• Wongkurapuna, Wangarabunna
• Nulla
• Yendakarangu

Some words

• thanthani (cormorant) also the name of a totem.
• kutyu. ritual assassin, kurdaitcha.

Sources

• Basedow, Herbert (1925). The Australian Aboriginal. F.W. Preece and Sons. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bates, Daisy (2018). "Aborigines of the West Coast of South Australia; vocabularies and ethnological notes". Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. 42. Adelaide: 152–167. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• East, J. J. (1889). Aborigines of South and Central Australia. Adelaide. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Elkin, A. P. (September 1931). "The Social Organization of South Australian Tribes". Oceania. 2 (1): 44–73. JSTOR 40327353. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Elkin, A. P. (March 1940a). "Kinship in South Australia (Continued)". Oceania. 10 (3): 295–349. JSTOR 40327772. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Elkin, A. P. (June 1940b). "Kinship in South Australia (Continued)". Oceania. 10 (4): 369–388. JSTOR 40327864. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Eylmann, Erhard (1908). Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (PDF). Berlin: D.Reimer. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Helms, Richard (1896). "Anthropology of the Elder Exploring Expedition. 1871-1872". Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. 16. Adelaide: 237–332. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hercus, Luise A. (1968). "Some aspects of the form and use of the trial number in Victorian languages and Arabana". Mankind. 6 (8): 335–337. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gibson, Jason; Hercus, Luise A. (December 2018). Roberts, Amy; Wesley, Daryl (eds.). "Capturing Histories at Thantyu-Wanparda:Comparising early and late twentieth century ethnographies in Arabana Territory, South Australia". Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia. 32: 175–210. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Howitt, Alfred William (1904). The native tribes of south-east Australia (PDF). Macmillan. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Howitt, Alfred William; Siebert, Otto (January–June 1904). "Legends of the Dieri and Kindred Tribes of Central Australia". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 34: 100–129. JSTOR 2843089. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Knibbs, George Handley, ed. (18 July 1914). "The commonwealth of Australia; federal handbook, prepared in connection with the eighty-fourth meeting of the British association for the advancement of science, held in Australia, August, 1914". Melbourne : A. J. Mullet, government printer. Retrieved 18 July 2019 – via Internet Archive.
• "Lora Creek, Australia - Geographical Names, map, geographic coordinates". geographic.org. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
• Mathews, R. H. (January 1900). "Divisions of the South Australian Aborigines". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 39 (161): 78–91+93. JSTOR 983545. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Parker, K. Langloh (1905). The Euahlayi tribe; a study of aboriginal life in Australia (PDF). A. Constable & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Shaw, Bruce (1995). Our Heart Is the Land: Aboriginal Reminiscences from the Western Lake Eyre Basin. Aboriginal Studies Press. ISBN 978-0-855-75569-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Spencer, Sir Baldwin; Gillen, Francis J. (1904). Northern Tribes of Central Australia (PDF). Macmillan Publishers. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Spencer, Sir Baldwin; Gillen, Francis J. (1912). Across Australia (PDF). Vol. 2. Macmillan Publishers. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Strehlow, C. (1910). Leonhardi, Moritz von (ed.). Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien Part 3 (PDF). Joseph Baer & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Taplin, George (1879). Folklore, manners, customs and languages of the South Australian aborigines (PDF). Adelaide: E Spiller, Acting Government Printer. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Arabana(SA)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)