The Wenamba are 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 ...

people of the central eastern edge 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 ...

in the Goldfields Region.

Language

The Wenamba spoke a dialect similar to that of the

Pintupi The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into ...

Country

The Wenamba ranged over an estimated .

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 ...

places them to the north of the Rawlinson Ranges and Lake Neale and Lake Hopkins, extending northwards to the area of Lake Macdonald. Their western limits are set at a place called ''Kurultu/Kurultja'', believed to be somewhere around the Baron Range.

People

The Wenamba, though tribally distinct, were closely affiliated to the Pintupi. The

Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are vari ...

name for them was , from their word , meaning 'yes', implying that they were 'yes people' since they were said to reply to any and every inquiry by responding in the affirmative. The Wenamba were one of several desert tribes known generically as ''Kalgonei/Kalgoneidjara'', One telling term used of them, ''Mangawara'', meant ' chignon bearers' referring to their dressing their hair in buns, which in turn served to hold some of their possessions.

History

The police ranger

Walter MacDougall Walter Batchelor MacDougall (6 April 1907 – 5 May 1976) was an Australian missionary and patrol officer who worked with the indigenous peoples in the desert regions of Western Australia and South Australia Biography MacDougall was born in Morni ...

was the first white man known to have contact with the Wenamba. While camping one night near the Rawlinson Ranges, his attention was drawn to a shuffling noise, and he looked up and noticed a little native girl quietly walking towards the campfire. He broke the tension by remarking in

on the (prickly)

bush tomato Bush tomatoes are the fruit or entire plants of certain nightshade (''Solanum'') species native to the more arid parts of Australia. While they are quite closely related to tomatoes (''Solanum lycopersicum''), they might be even closer relatives ...

seeds strewn over the ground made walking barefoot difficult. At that point, the Wenamba father drew near, his hands splayed to show he carried no weapons. The 'drifters' spoke a dialect distinct from

Ngadadjara The Ngaatjatjarra (otherwise spelt Ngadadjara) are an Indigenous Australian people of Western Australia, with communities located in the north eastern part of the Goldfields-Esperance region. Name The ethnonym Ngaatjatjarra, in line with a gener ...

and Pitjantjatjara, though they could understand the latter. With an amicable rapport established, the father then fetched his three-barbed spear, unlike the single barb deployed by the other two tribes. In 1950, some Wenamba were reported to have moved over to the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

to settle at the Yuendumu Government Station, and, after a further stay at

Haasts Bluff Haasts Bluff, also known as Ikuntji, is an Aboriginal Australian community in Central Australia, a region of the Northern Territory. The community is located in the MacDonnell Shire local government area, west of Alice Springs. At the 2006 ce ...

to have upped stakes and moved back to their traditional lands, preferring to return to their nomadic ways.

Alternative names

* ''Wenanba'' * ''Wankawinan'' (

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 ...

) * ''Kalgonei'' (a Ngadadjara term for the dialect they spoke) * ''Wanudjara Ngadadjara'' * ''Pintularapi'' (a vulgar term applied indiscriminately to both the Pintupi and Wenamba by the Ngadadjara) * ''Mangawara'' * ''Kalguni?'' * ''Widanda'' * ''Tjurti'' (Pintupi exonym).

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia Canning Stock Route Mid West (Western Australia)