![Wirangu Map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Wirangu_Map.jpg)
The Nauo people, also spelt Nawu and Nhawu, 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 Islands ...
people of the south-western
Eyre Peninsula
The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north.
Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named aft ...
in
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
. The
Nauo language
__NOTOC__
The Nauo language, also commonly written Nawu, is an extinct and little-recorded Australian Aboriginal language that was spoken by the Nauo people on the southern part of the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. However, work on the reco ...
became
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
by the twentieth century, but efforts are being made to revive it.
Country
Before the official
British colonisation of South Australia
British colonisation of South Australia describes the planning and establishment of the colony of South Australia by the British government, covering the period from 1829, when the idea was raised by the then-imprisoned Edward Gibbon Wakefield ...
in 1836, the Nauo people fell victim to raids by
whaler
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales.
Terminology
The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japa ...
s and
sealers who worked the southern coast of the continent, and European settlement on the Eyre Peninsula encroached on the land of the Indigenous peoples. By the time that anthropologist
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 ...
was documenting the territories of the various people in the 1930s, he was not able to find any Nauo people, so obtained his information mainly from
Wirangu and
Barngarla
The Barngarla, formerly known as Parnkalla and also known as Pangkala, are an Aboriginal people of the Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta areas. The Barngarla are the traditional owners of much of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.
Language ...
people.
According to Tindale, the traditional lands of the Nauo people were on the
Eyre peninsula
The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north.
Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named aft ...
, with their principal centres around the
scrub gum
''Eucalyptus argophloia'', commonly known as Queensland western white gum, Queensland white gum, scrub gum, lapunyah, Burncluith gum or Chinchilla white gum is a tree that is endemic to a small area of Queensland. It has smooth white bark age ...
forest areas of the south-western coast. Their combined territory covered approximately , with the western frontiers around
Cape Radstock
Cape Radstock is a headland located on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia about south south-east of the town of Streaky Bay and about south east of Point Labatt. The cape is both the north western extremity of Anxious Bay and ...
, northwards to beyond
Minnipa
Minnipa is a small town serving the local grain growing community located on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.
History
The Nauo were the indigenous people of the area of Minnipa prior to English colonisation and the area around the town was fi ...
. Their eastern extension ran close to
Darke Peak
Darke Peak (formerly Carappee) is a small agricultural town located in central Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. The town is the population centre for the surrounding agricultural district and has become a minor historical tourist town. It is ...
, and took in the areas west of
Cleve and halfway between
Carrow and
Franklin Harbor #REDIRECT Cowell, South Australia
Cowell is a coastal town on Franklin Harbor on the eastern side of the Eyre Peninsula, in South Australia on the Lincoln Highway 111 km south of the major town of Whyalla. It is 493 km by road from Ad ...
.
Port Lincoln
Port Lincoln is a town on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia. It is situated on the shore of Boston Bay, which opens eastward into Spencer Gulf. It is the largest city in the West Coast region, and is located a ...
,
Mount Hope,
Coffin Bay
Coffin Bay, originally Coffin's Bay, is a town at the southern extremity of the Eyre Peninsula, a wheat growing area of South Australia. At the 2016 census, Coffin Bay had a population of 611. Material was copied from this source, which is avai ...
, and
Elliston were all part of Nauo territory.
History of contact
It is thought that, before the advent of
white colonisation, the Nauo had a more northern boundary extension from the
Gawler Ranges
The Gawler Ranges are a range of stoney hills in South Australia to the north of Eyre Peninsula. The Eyre Highway skirts the south of the ranges. The Gawler Ranges National Park is in the ranges north of Kimba, South Australia, Kimba and Wudinna ...
to
Port Augusta
Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a port, seaport, it is now a road traffic and Junction (rail), railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about ...
. They were pressed to move further south by the time white settlement began, as the
Barngarla
The Barngarla, formerly known as Parnkalla and also known as Pangkala, are an Aboriginal people of the Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta areas. The Barngarla are the traditional owners of much of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.
Language ...
's relocation brought pressure to bear on them from the north. At the same time, devastation came in from the south with the establishment of
sealing stations along their southern coastal frontiers, whose men, together with escapees from
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
n prisons, kidnapped many Nauo women, beginning with raids in the first decades of the 1800s from their bases on
Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...
. The violence of these early encounters may explain the hostility of the Nauo to later settlers. The
Waterloo Bay Massacre
The Waterloo Bay massacre, also known as the Elliston massacre, was a clash between European settlers and Aboriginal Australians that took place on the cliffs of Waterloo Bay near Elliston, South Australia, in late May 1849. Part of the Austr ...
, near Elliston, which is said to have taken place around 1846, is still a contentious historical issue. Tindale summarised the rumour as follows:
Following the killing of a shepherd named Hamp, and the wife of another immediately afterward, it is claimed that 160 well-armed men drove a large group of aborigines, said to have numbered 260, over a cliff into the sea. According to this entirely unconfirmed report, only two aborigines survived.
Whatever the truth, some Nauo were still in that area years afterwards.
As late as 2017, agreement between the successor
Wirangu community and the Elliston municipal council on the terms to be used to describe what happened were still stalled, with representatives of the latter stating that "massacre" was too strong a word to describe what has been traditionally called the "Elliston incident", where "something happened" but the details are unknown.
In May 2018, a group of seven Nauo
elders, along with two local
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
s, presented a talk on the Aboriginal history of the Coffin Bay area at the Coffin Bay Yacht Club. Elder Jody Miller thought it was possibly the first time in South Australia that a
Native Title claim group had been asked by a local non-
Indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
community to share their culture and
songline
A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal cultures of Australia which mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dre ...
s.
Language
The
Nauo language
__NOTOC__
The Nauo language, also commonly written Nawu, is an extinct and little-recorded Australian Aboriginal language that was spoken by the Nauo people on the southern part of the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. However, work on the reco ...
is extinct; there have been no recorded speakers since before 1975. It had some similarities with the
Wirangu language
The Wirangu language, also written Wirrongu, Wirrung, Wirrunga, and Wirangga, and also known by other exonyms, is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language traditionally spoken by the Wirangu people, living on the west coast of South Australia ...
.
The
Mobile Language Team
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public university, public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main camp ...
(MLT) from the
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
has started work on the reconstruction of the language, based on the 10 words recorded by German missionary
C.W. Schürmann, increasing the wordlist to 300 words. MLT is preparing a website for online learning site of the language.
[
]
Mythology
According to Nauo beliefs, the spirits of the departed are thought to dwell on the islands in Spencer Gulf
The Spencer Gulf is the westernmost and larger of two large inlets (the other being Gulf St Vincent) on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, facing the Great Australian Bight. It spans from the Cape Catastrophe and ...
.
George French Angas
George French Angas (25 April 1822 – 4 October 1886), also known as G.F.A., was an English explorer, naturalist, painter and poet who emigrated to Australia. His paintings are held in a number of important Australian public art collections. ...
wrote in 1847 the following legend:
They affirm that the Nauo tribe was once entirely cut off by a great and powerful warrior, styled ''Willoo'' (eaglehawk
The wedge-tailed eagle (''Aquila audax'') is the largest bird of prey in the continent of Australia. It is also found in southern New Guinea to the north and is distributed as far south as the state of Tasmania. Adults of this species have lon ...
). This formidable individual attempted to possess himself of all the women, and destroyed every man except two, who escaped by climbing into thick trees. Their names were, ''Karkantya'' and ''Poona'' (two smaller species of hawk). Willoo climbed after them, but they broke off the branch upon which he sat, and he fell to the ground; that instant a dog deprived him of his virility, when he immediately died, and was transformed into an eagle-hawk. A small lizard is supposed to be the originator of the sexes. The men distinguish it by the name of ''ibirri'', the women call it ''waka'': the men destroy the male lizards, and the women the females.
Alternative names
* ''Battara'' (''bat:ara'' meaning a variety of scrubby gum)
* ''Gnowoo''
* ''Hilleri''
* ''Kadu'' (the term meant "man")
* ''Kartawongulta'' (language name)
* ''Ngao'' (late (1939) Barngarla
The Barngarla, formerly known as Parnkalla and also known as Pangkala, are an Aboriginal people of the Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Port Augusta areas. The Barngarla are the traditional owners of much of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.
Language ...
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
)
* ''Njau, Njao,Nawo, Naua, Nowo''
* ''Wiljaru'' (Barngarla exonym meaning "westerners")
* ''Willuro''
Notes
Citations
Sources
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External links
* Includes inventory listings of holdings.
{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of South Australia