The Dharawal people, also spelt Tharawal and other variants, are an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...

people, identified by the Dharawal language. Traditionally, they lived as hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, mea ...

s with ties of

kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...

, scattered along the coastal area of what is now the

Sydney basin The Sydney Basin is an interim Australian bioregion and is both a structural entity and a depositional area, now preserved on the east coast of New South Wales, Australia and with some of its eastern side now subsided beneath the Tasman Sea ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Etymology

''Dharawal'' means

cabbage palm Cabbage palm is a common name for several species of palms or palm-like plants: *''Cordyline fruticosa'', a tropical tree native to Asia and Polynesia *''Corypha utan'', an East Asian fan palm (including Northern Australia) *'' Euterpe oleracea'', ...

Country

According to ethnologist

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...

, traditional Dharawal lands encompass some from the south of

Sydney Harbour Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove River, Lane Cove and Parramatta River, Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or harbor, natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. T ...

, through

Georges River The Georges River, also known as Tucoerah River, is an intermediate tide-dominated drowned valley estuary, located to the south and west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The river travels for approximately in a north and then easterly ...

Botany Bay Botany Bay ( Dharawal: ''Kamay''), an open oceanic embayment, is located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point and the Cook ...

, Port Hacking and south beyond the

Shoalhaven River The Shoalhaven River is a perennial river that rises from the Southern Tablelands and flows into an open mature wave dominated barrier estuary near Nowra on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Location and features The Shoalha ...

to the Beecroft Peninsula. Their inland extent reaches Campbelltown and Camden.

Clans

The Gweagal were also known as the "Fire Clan". They are said to be the first people to first make contact with Captain Cook. The artist Sydney Parkinson, one of the Endeavour's crew members, wrote in his journal that the indigenous people threatened them shouting words he transcribed as ''warra warra wai,'' which he glossed to signify 'Go away'. According to spokesmen for the contemporary Dharawal community, the meaning was rather 'You are all dead', since ''warra'' is a

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...

in the Dharawal language meaning 'wither', 'white' or 'dead'. As Cook's ship hove to near the foreshore, it appeared to the Dharwal to be a white low-lying cloud, and its crew 'dead' people whom they warned off from returning to the country. The Cubbitch Barta clan registered an Indigenous land use agreement for

Helensburgh Helensburgh (; gd, Baile Eilidh) is an affluent coastal town on the north side of the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, situated at the mouth of the Gareloch. Historically in Dunbartonshire, it became part of Argyll and Bute following local gove ...

in 2011.

Lifestyle

The whale is the main totem for the Dharawal people. The historical artwork ( rock engravings) of the Dharawal people is visible on the sandstone surfaces throughout their language area and

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ...

and

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

paintings, drawings and hand stencils can be found on hundreds of rock surfaces and in the many dozens of

rock shelter A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long, rock shelters are almost alwa ...

s and overhangs in that area of land. There is a public viewing site of one group of engravings at Jibbon Point, showing a whale and a wallaby, celebrating successful hunts and whale strandings. Those engravings are marred by recent European inclusions. The original Jibbon point engravings (pecked and abraided

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s) show a pod of

killer whale The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pat ...

s hunting a seal. It has been claimed that there were no remaining descendants of the Dharawal people; however, after the '' Mabo v Queensland'' verdict and the ''

Native Title Act 1993 The ''Native Title Act 1993'' (Cth) is a law passed by the Australian Parliament, the purpose of which is "to provide a national system for the recognition and protection of native title and for its co-existence with the national land managem ...

'' there have been claims lodged by descendants of the Wodiwodi clan who claim to have survived the early decimations and gradually moved back into the areas formally occupied by other clans. These Wodi Wodi clansmen are claiming lineage to the Dharawal tribe. Others claim descent from the Gweagal clan. The Dharawal people lived mainly by the produce of local plants, fruits and vegetables and by fishing and gathering

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environ ...

products. The men also hunted land mammals and speared fish. The women collected the vegetable foods and were well known for their fishing and canoeing prowess. There are a large number of shell middens still visible in the areas around the southern Sydney area and a glimpse of the Dharawal lifestyle can be drawn from an understanding of the kitchen rubbish left on the midden sites.

Alternative names

* ''Carawal''. (Pacific islands phonetic system, ''c'' had the value of ''th'') * ''Darawad'' * ''Ta-ga-ry''. (''tagara'' = north) * ''Thurawal'' * ''Thurrawal'' * ''Thurrawall'' * ''Turawal'' * ''Turrubul'' * ''Turuwal'' * ''Turuwul'' * ''Turuwull'' Source:

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

*
Local Aboriginal Land Council on Facebook
{{Authority control Aboriginal peoples of New South Wales