The Tharawal people and other variants, are an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

people, identified by the Yuin 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, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Many societie ...

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 Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, 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 ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Etymology

''Dharawal'' means cabbage palm.

Country

According to ethnologist

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. He is best remembered for his work mapping the various tribal groupings of Aboriginal Australians ...

, traditional Dharawal lands encompass some from the south of

Sydney Harbour Port Jackson, commonly known as Sydney Harbour, is a ria, natural harbour on the east coast of Australia, around which Sydney was built. It consists of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove River, Lane ...

, through

Georges River The Georges River, also known as Tucoerah River, is an intermediate tide-dominated Ria, drowned valley estuary, that is located in Sydney, Australia. The Georges River is located south and south-west from the Sydney central business district, w ...

Botany Bay Botany Bay (Dharawal language, Dharawal: ''Kamay'') is an open oceanic embayment, 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 a ...

Port Hacking Port Hacking Estuary ( Aboriginal Tharawal language: ''Deeban''), an open youthful tide dominated, drowned valley estuary, is located in southern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia approximately south of Sydney central business district. Po ...

and south beyond the

Shoalhaven River The Shoalhaven River is a perennial stream, perennial river that rises from the Southern Tablelands and flows into an open mature wind wave, wave dominated estuary#Lagoon-type or bar-built, barrier estuary near Nowra on the South Coast, New Sou ...

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

Clans

The

Gweagal The Gweagal (also spelt Gwiyagal) are a clan of the Tharawal, Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are Traditional owners, traditional custodians of the southern areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Country The ...

were also known as the "Fire Clan". They are said to be the first people to make contact with

Captain Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He complet ...

. 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 plant organ, 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 bel ...

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 Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title right ...

for

Helensburgh Helensburgh ( ; ) is a 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 government reorganisation in 1996. Histo ...

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, ca ...

and

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), iron 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 colou ...

paintings, drawings and

hand stencils In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin. These paintings were often created by ''Homo ...

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 or wide, rock shelters are alm ...

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 A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized Macropodidae, macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same Taxonomy (biology), taxon ...

. According to an early Dharawal informant, Biddy Giles, these images commemorated notable events, a successful hunt and the stranding of a whale. The Dharawal people lived mainly by the produce of local plants, fruits and vegetables and by fishing and gathering

shellfish Shellfish, in colloquial and fisheries usage, are exoskeleton-bearing Aquatic animal, aquatic invertebrates used as Human food, food, including various species of Mollusca, molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish ...

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 midden A midden is an old landfill, dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bone, bones, feces, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, Lithic flake, lithics (especially debitage), and other Artifact (archaeology), ...

s 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

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External links

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