The Ngarkat is a recorded title of a tribal group from
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 Ngarkat lands had linked the mallee peoples of
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
and
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 ...
to the river peoples of the Murray River
Murraylands
The Murraylands is a geographical region of the Australian state of South Australia (SA); its name reflects that of the river running through it. Lying due east of South Australia's capital city, Adelaide, it extends from the eastern slopes of ...
. Ngarkat language has been loosely grouped with
Peramangk language
Peramangk language is also known as Merildekald and is a Pama-Nyungan language of the Peramangk lands in South Australia. Like its congener the Kaurna language, it was previously considered endangered.
History
Many Peramangk place names, cult ...
though not by linguists, and the grouping was perhaps partly owed to the co-ownership of lands in both the
Ninety Mile Desert and
Echunga
Echunga ( ) is a small town in the Adelaide Hills located south-east of Adelaide in South Australia.
The area was settled by Europeans during the period of British colonisation of South Australia in 1839, with the town laid out in 1849. The na ...
by
John Barton Hack
John Barton Hack (2 July 1805 – 4 October 1884) was an early settler in South Australia; a prominent farmer, businessman and public figure. He lost his fortune in the financial crisis of 1840 and despite his best efforts, never regained anything ...
, and partly to the occasional meeting of tribes. The language of the Ngarkat was recorded as being Boraipur by Ryan in recent times though sources were not given, while it may yet be telling that the citing work concerns Mallee peoples to the east. The language may have been midway between that of mallee peoples to the east, and that of peoples to the west recorded by Teichelmann and Schurman. It is known that songlines linked the Coorong to the Mallee regions, hence went through Ngarkat land. It is also known that Ngarkat people did meet regularly with tribes to the east, at sites along the Murray.
Country
The Ngarkat's traditional lands have been estimated by
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 ...
to have extended over some of the
Mallee scrub belt lying east of the
Murray River
The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray) (Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta: ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest r ...
. They took in
Alawoona
Alawoona is a town in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia. At the , Alawoona had a population of 250. It lies on the Karoonda Highway and Loxton railway line where they both change direction from easterly to continue northwards for 35&nb ...
south as far as
Pinnaroo, Taunta,
Keith
Keith may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters
* Keith (surname)
* Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949)
* Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...
,
Tintinara, and
Coonalpyn. Their eastern boundaries reached
Tatiara and about
Murrayville Kimber argued that Tindale had pushed the Ngarkat territorial extension into lands properly possessed by the
Wotjobaluk
The Wotjobaluk are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. They are closely related to the Wergaia people.
Language
R. H. Mathews supplied a brief analysis of the Wotjobaluk language (now known as Wergaia), describing what he ...
to their east, and takes the ''Jackegilbrab'' around
Bordertown as belonging to the latter, but a distinct tribe.
Ecology
The Ngarkat lived on a largely waterless
karst
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...
plateau. Rainfall varies from 8 inches in the north to 18 in the south. Winters can be freezing, while temperatures could hit in summer, though averaging . In no part of the land was there a single perennial stream; water was found in soakages, by working mallee roots or culling whatever hollow trees retained, or rock cleavages held. Waterskins were manufactured from kangaroo and wallaby hides.
The lack of surface water determined much of their lifestyle. Neighbouring tribes such as the
Warki
The Warki are a ''lakalinyeri'' (tribe) of the Ngarrindjeri Australian Aboriginal people of southern Australia.
Language
The Warki spoke a dialect variety of Ngarrindjeri.
Country
The Warki traditionally inhabited the area around the north and w ...
,
Jarildekald, and
Portaulun lived in areas where they could hunt and trap animals, fish and ducks, and such resources enabled a more settled tribal existence. The Ngarkat, conversely, were an ever-shifting nomadic people, lacking even a fixed nomenclature for the mallee groves where they pitched camp and drew water from the mallee roots. The few stable points of return, which allowed a seasonal living base, were named and the lore of the ancestral beings of each clan developed only in such places.
In periods of severe drought the Ngarkat withdrew to the Devon Downs Rock-shelter, called ''
Ngautngaut'', on the Murray River, to which they were permitted access by a track down the cliff. In local mythology this ''Ngautngaut'' was a Being who dwelt in the mallee scrubland, who had been murdered when he knelt down on his knees to slake his thirst at a water-hole.
Social organization
The Ngarkat subtribal units were widely dispersed given the scarcity of water and were divided into six
hordes, according to an old Tatiara informant
* ''Kooinkill''
* ''Wirriga''
* ''Chala''
* ''Camiagiiigara''
* ''Niall''
* ''Munkoora''
Material culture
The Ngarkat faced a particular problem in making implements, millstones, hammers and axes, since suitable stone or rock materials were quite rare in their area. Onsets of highly arid weather, on draining soakages, yield evidence, aside from skeletons, of tools fashioned from
chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...
,
quartzite
Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...
and
jasp-opal.
Despite its arid inhospitable terrain, Ngarkat territory was crisscrossed by trade routes, from
Lake Hindmarsh
Lake Hindmarsh, an ephemeral lake located in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, Australia, is the state's largest natural freshwater lake. The nearest towns are Jeparit to the south and Rainbow to the north. After more than a decade of dro ...
to Bordertown, from
Nhill
Nhill is a town in the Wimmera, in western Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. Nhill is located on the Western Highway, Victoria, Western Highway, halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne. At the , Nhill had a
population of 1,749. "Nhill" i ...
to Murrayville and Pinnaroo, from the Wirrurgren Plain north of
Lake Albacutya
Lake Albacutya (Wergaia: ''Ngelbakutya'') is an ephemeral lake located in Albacutya within the Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia. It is one of a series of terminal lakes on the Wimmera River, which form the largest land-locked drainage syst ...
through Pinnaroo country to the
Murray Bridge area. The items bartered along these trails were things like
yabbyclaw necklaces, pipe clay, red ochre,
diorite
Diorite ( ) is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is intermediate in composition between low-silic ...
stone axes, and the like.
Relations with other tribes
The Ngarkat, who often had to seek water on other tribal lands, had difficult relations with several tribes. One
aetiological legend, according to the
Ngarrindjeri
The Ngarrindjeri people are the traditional Aboriginal Australian people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of the southern-central area of the state of South Australia. The term ''Ngarrindjeri'' means "belo ...
elder Matt Rigney, explains the pink waters of
Lake Bumbunga
Lake Bumbunga is a salt lake located in the Mid North of the state of South Australia, between the town of Lochiel and the farming locality of Bumbunga, approximately 1.5 hours' drive from Adelaide. It is a pink lake, with its colour due to c ...
, often called by settlers "Pink Lake", as the outcome of a bloody battle between the Ngarrindjeri and the Ngarkat which left many slain warriors in its waters.
Their lands were considered in surrounding tribal lore as dangerous and "legends of fear" circulated concerning its proneness to hurricanes, or its putative infestation by malign spirits. Its Tatiara denizens were said to prey on human flesh, though ritual cannibalism was also attested among many other tribes, and was not uncommon. had the Ngarkat practiced it, in times of extreme scarcity of food, they would not have been an exception.
History of contact
The explorer
Edward Eyre
Edward John Eyre (5 August 181530 November 1901) was an English land explorer of the Australian continent, colonial administrator, and Governor of Jamaica.
Early life
Eyre was born in Whipsnade, Bedfordshire, shortly before his family moved to ...
passed through Ngarkat lands during his 1940-1841 travels. He wrote of the tribe (calling them ''Arkatko'') that they shared similar "dialects" but were mutually unintelligible unless a common third dialect was used to bridge misunderstandings.
According to Richard Glyn Kimber only 50 of the Jackegilbrab horde survived into the mid-1840s, attributing the decline to disease. It has also been suggested that many of the Ngarkat were massacred though it is unclear by who. A burial site of 70 skeletons weas documented at a soakage in the
Lameroo district by early pioneers.
The tribal name has been restored and conserved in the South Australian landscape by the establishment of a locality called
Ngarkat
The Ngarkat is a recorded title of a tribal group from South Australia. The Ngarkat lands had linked the mallee peoples of Victoria and South Australia to the river peoples of the Murray River Murraylands. Ngarkat language has been loosely groupe ...
, and by setting aside part of its traditional land as the
Ngarkat Conservation Park
Ngarkat Conservation Park is a protected area located in South Australia's south-eastern corner about south east of the Adelaide city centre.
The conservation park was proclaimed in 1979 "to conserve the mallee heath habitat of the 90 Mile ...
.
Alternative names
* ''Ngerget''
* ''Ngarkato''
* ''Arkatko''
* ''Boraipar''. (language name)
* ''Baripung'' (''barip'' means "man".)
* ''Boripar, Booripung''
* ''Tatiari''. (regional name for mallee desert)
* ''Thatiari''. (general term)
* ''Duwinbarap'' (eastern term ''barap'' = man).
* ''Doenbauraket''
* ''Tjakulprap''. (southeastern term ''parap'', a form of ''barab'', meaning "man").
* ''Jakalbarap, Jackalbarap''
* ''Jacke-gilbrab''
* ''Ngalundji'' (a name for language)
* ''Nalunghee''
* ''Wularuki'' (name for southwestern group)
Tribal exonyms
* ''Ngeruketi''. (
Maraura
The Maraura or Marrawarra people are an Aboriginal group whose traditional lands are located in Far West New South Wales and South Australia, Australia.
Language
The Maraura spoke the southernmost dialect of Paakantyi. A wordlist of the langu ...
term)
* ''Ratarapa'' (
Nganguruku
The Nganguruku are an indigenous Australian people of the state of South Australia.
Language
The Nganguruku traditionally spoke a language similar to that of the Ngaiawang, but with significant dialect differences. The similarity has caused them ...
term)
* ''Mangkarupi'' (Jarildekalde term)
* ''Merkani/Merkanie'' (Jaralde and Tangane term, means "enemy")
* ''Jakel-baluk'' (
Wotjobaluk
The Wotjobaluk are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. They are closely related to the Wergaia people.
Language
R. H. Mathews supplied a brief analysis of the Wotjobaluk language (now known as Wergaia), describing what he ...
term)
* ''Baine Hill tribe'' (horde around Lameroo).
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of South Australia