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Koa people

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The Koa (Guwa) are an indigenous Australian people of the state of Queensland.

Name

Tasaku Tsunoda and Gavan Breen have speculated that the ethnonym Koa may derive from a word *guwa meaning 'west'.[1]

Language

Walter Roth thought that the Koa language had affinities with that of the Maiawali, forming a linguistic bridge between it and the languages spoken by the Wanamara and Maithakari.[2] Like many other peoples of the area, they had an extensive sign language, indicating a large number of meanings by gestures.[3]

Country

In Norman Tindale's estimation, the Koa's tribal territory ranged over about 10,000 square miles (26,000 km2). Taking the headwaters of Diamantina as the centre, they extended north as far as Kynuna. Their western boundary lay around Middleton Creek, wshile to the east, their frontier was at Winton and Sesbania. Their southern limits were around Cork.[4]

Social organization, rites and practices

Neither circumcision nor subincision played any part in the Koa's initiatory rites into manhood.[4] At least one Koa Bora ground, a gibber clearing threaded with portoluca, used to exist close to the homestead on Carisbrooke Station, southwest of Winton.[5]

History of contact

Comparatively little is known of the Koa, and, in one modern tradition of whites in the area, they just 'melted away' when Europeans began to settle in their territory.[5]

Native title

In 1998 grazier Noel Kennedy applied to the Federal Court to have his property Castle Hill declared to be free of native title. This was challenged by the descendants of the Koa the following year,[6] in a counterclaim for native title to the Castle Hill Pastoral Holding and the Bladensburg National Park in the Shire of Winton. In mid-2002 a Federal Court declared that the Koa claim did not apply to Kennedy's pastoral lands because the Koa could not demonstrate continuity of cultural practices in that area over the last half-century.[7] In 2015, a further claim to title was made by the Koa.[8]

Alternative names

  • Goa.
  • Goamulgo.
  • Coa.
  • Coah.
  • Guwa.[4]

Some words

  • mikamo. (wild dog)
  • kobba. (father)
  • yanga. (mother)
  • witto. (whiteman)[9]
  • kungoyi. (purslane/pigweed)
  • tundooroola. (acicular-tip spear)[10]

Notes

Citations

  1. ^ Tsunoda 2012, p. 248.
  2. ^ Roth 1897, p. 42.
  3. ^ Roth 1897, pp. 70–90.
  4. ^ a b c Tindale 1974, p. 175.
  5. ^ a b May 2011.
  6. ^ Queensland 2000.
  7. ^ ABC 2002.
  8. ^ NNTT 2015.
  9. ^ Curr 1887a, p. 14.
  10. ^ Roth 1897, pp. 92, 146.

Sources

  • Anon, Coah (1897). "Tribal dialect near Kynuna". Australian Anthropological Journal. 1 (3). Sydney: 16–17. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Bennett, Samuel (1867). The History of Australian Discovery and Colonisation (PDF). Sydney: Hanson and Bennett. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • "Court rules property free of native title". ABC News. 14 June 2002.
  • Curr, Edward (1887a). "Diamantina River, Middleton Creek,-The Goa tribe" (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. Volume 3. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 14–15. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Curr, Montagu (1887b). "head of Diamantina" (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. Volume 3. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 12–13. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Haines, John (1887). "Western River" (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. Volume 3. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 16–17. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • "Koa People (QC2015/007)". National Native Title Tribunal. 16 July 2015.
  • Lamb, E. C. (1899a). "Goa dialect, Diamantina River, Queensland". Science of Man. 2 (3). Sydney: 42. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Lamb, E. C. (1899b). "Goa dialect, Diamantina River, Queensland". Science of Man. 2 (9). Sydney: 154–155. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Lamb, E. C. (1904). "Goa and Myalli language". Science of Man. 7 (3). Sydney: 27. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Lauterer, J. (1897). "Aboriginal languages of eastern Australia compared". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland. 12. Brisbane: 11–16. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • May, David (16 October 2011). "Digging the digs in The Outback". The Australian. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • "Queensland" (PDF). Australasian Legal Information Institute. 2000.
  • Roth, W. E. (1897). Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (PDF). Brisbane: Edmund Gregory, Government Printer. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Koa (QLD)". 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)
  • Tsunoda, Tasaku (2012). A Grammar of Worrongo. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-110-23877-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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