Arabana people

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

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[1] by George Handley Knibbs

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.[2]

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.[3]

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[4] and Lake Cadibarrawirracanna.[2]

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.[2]

Mythology

Several traditional stories are well documented, especially that regarding a man-eating Buzzard and his Eaglehawk mate.[5] 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.[6]

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.[7]

Social organisation

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

  • Jendakarangu (Coward Springs)
  • Peake tribe
  • Anna Creek tribe[2]

Their moieties were named Mathari and Kararru.[8]

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[2]

Some words
  • thanthani (cormorant) also the name of a totem.
  • kutyu. ritual assassin, kurdaitcha. [9]

Notes

    Citations
    1. Federal Handbook 1914.
    2. Tindale 1974, p. 210.
    3. Shaw 1995, p. 23.
    4. geographic.org.
    5. Spencer & Gillen 1912, pp. 24–28.
    6. Gibson & Hercus 2018, p. 193.
    7. Gibson & Hercus 2018, pp. 179-180.
    8. Gibson & Hercus 2018, p. 186.
    9. Gibson & Hercus 2018, p. 207, n37.

    Sources
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