The Tjalkadjara or Tjalkanti were an

indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

tribe of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

Country

The Tjalkadjara's tribal homelands lay northeast of Laverton as far as Lake Throssell. Their confines were in the vicinity of Darlot to the west, and to the north, around

Lake Wells Lake Wells is an ephemeral salt lake in the centre of Western Australia, lying in close proximity to Lake Carnegie. It lies east of Wiluna and is at the southern edge of the Little Sandy Desert and south western border of the Gibson Desert. It al ...

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 ...

estimated their tribal lands as once having covered . Their neighbouring tribes were the Pini on their northeastern and northern flank; the

Ngaanyatjarra The Ngaanyatjarra, also known (along with the Pini) as the Nana, are an Indigenous Australian cultural group of Western Australia. They are located in the Goldfields-Esperance region, as well as Northern Territory. Language Ngaanyatjarra i ...

to the northeast; the

Mandjindja The Mandjindja or Mantjintjarra are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Australia belonging to the Western Desert cultural bloc. Country According to Norman Tindale's estimate, the Mandjindja's territory extended over roughly , in the sa ...

and the

Nangatadjara The Nangatadjara are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Australia. Country Nangatadjara lands encompassed, according to Tindale, approximately . Their north-northeastern extension touched the Bailey, Virginia and Newland Ranges. They r ...

east-southeast; the Waljen to their south, and the Kuwarra to their west.

Resources

The water sources available to the Tjalkadjara were scarce and in good part they had to rely on what they could extract from the roots of eucalyptus. They possessed a mine north of Laverton, at Taralguta, which was rich in solid

red 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 ...

that was much prized by other neighbouring tribes, and which formed an important part of their trading with others.

History

The Tjalkadjara were eventually pushed out of their southern territory and forced to shift northwest to Darlot at the turn of the 19-20th centuries, as pressure was brought to bear on them from the

Alternative names

* ''Tjalkumara'' * ''Tjalkandjara'' * ''Tjalkakari''. ( "come this way") * ''Wordako''. (language name) * ''Tjalkani'' * ''Djalgani, Djalgandi, Tjalgandi'' * ''Erlistoun tribe''. * ''Dituwonga''. ( Waljen

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 ...

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia