Yingkarta

The Yingkarta people, also written Inggarda and Ingarda, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Gascoyne region of Western Australia.

Language

Main article: Yinggarda language

Yinggarda was a Kartu language spoken from the coastal area around Carnarvon through the Gascoyne River to the junction and southwards to the Wooramel River. The earliest record of the languages dates back from material collected by and anonymous source and forwarded by Lord Gifford to Edward Curr who published a list of basic words in 1886.^[1][2]

There were two dialects, a northern and southern variety, with marked lexical differences.^[3][4] Down to the end of the 20th century, it was reported that the Carnavon community had a wide knowledge of Yingkarta words, but that their use was somewhat restricted. Given the movement of Wadjarri into this area, a people with whom the Yiongkarta maintained strong links, the young mix the two vocabularies.^[5]

Country

The Yingkarta's lands, lying between the Gascoyne and River Wooramel rivers in a wedge of land separating those of the Tedei to their south, and of their northern neighbours the Mandi. Their inland extension, from the northern area of Shark Bay,^[6] ran as far east as the vicinity of Red Hill and Gascoyne Junction. Alan Dench also lists among their northern neighbours the Baiyungu, Maia, Tharrkari and Warriyangga, while stating the Malgana lay to their south, and the Wadjarri to their east.^[6]

According to Norman Tindale's estimation, this territory covered about 4,200 square miles (11,000 km²).^[7] }

History of contact

White colonial occupation of Yingkarta lands began in 1877 when the indigenous population was estimated to number some 2,000 people. Small-pox (moonnangno)was common among them.^[8]

Social organisation and rites

It is not known whether or not the Yinggarda had a section system. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, writing in 1930, stated of them that:

In the case of the Ingarda tribe to the south of the Gascoyne River it was impossible to determine if they really had or had not a section system. They knew the names of the sections of the Maia and Warienga [Warriyangka] tribes and every man claimed membership of a particular section. ... They might once have had such a system which had broken down or they might merely be trying to adapt themselves as well as possible to the social organisation of the neighbouring tribes.^[9] When the data was collected in 1911, little was remembered of their marriage systems and Alan Dench thinks it probable, unlike many neighbouring tribes to their north, they did not have a moieties.^[10]

The Yingkarta were said by some early explorers to have practised circumcision.^[a] However, they lie to the west of the circumcision line,^[11] was denied by a colonial observer in 1886 who was familiar with their language,^[12] and has been contested by modern descendants and scholars, who state that this was a practice of the Watjarri to their west.^[b] Since the Inggarda social bands contiguous with the Watjarri were known under the distinct hordal name of Kurudandi (perhaps surviving in the contemporary station toponym Coordewandy, Tindale suggested that while the Inggarda to the east had not adopted this rite, the western clans might have at some time taken up the practice as current among the Watjarri.^[7]

The Nanda on the southern end of Shark Bay were much in fear of the Inggarda whom they regarded as highly proficient in the art of sorcery (boollia), which included the power to conjure up rain at will.^[13]

Alternative names

• Angaardi, Angaardie
• Ingara, Ingarra, Ingarrah, Ingra
• Ingarda, Inggadi, Ingada, Ingadi
• Inparra. (perhaps a misprint)^[14]
• Jaburu ("northerners")^[7]
• Kakarakala. (a Mandi exonym referring also to the Baiyungu and Maia, from kalarra and karla(fire)^[1] the root of this word, kakarra means "east", a generic term.^[7]
• Kurudandi (eastern hordes)

Some words

• mama (father).^[15]
• narana (white man).^[16]
• papa/kunta (water).^[17][c]
• pipi (mother)^[d]
• thuthu (dog)^[18][e]

Notes

1. "Among the Angaardies, circumcision is performed by of a sharp flint, and after the consummation of the rite, the youth is forbidden to look on a woman for the space of two years, consequently he cannot associate with the rest of the tribe, except with the men when hunting, the women then being about their own business. When this time of probation past, he comes near the general camping-place, makes a good fire, and all his friends go to see him, felicitating him on the termination of his solitary mode of life, and if there be any female whom he has legal claims, she is at once surrendered." (Oldfield 1865, p. 252)
2. "The fact that they did not circumcise also suggests that they would have interacted more closely with their northern and southern neighbours in ritual practice than they did with the Wajarri to the east, despite the indications that their relations with the Wajarri were better than for most coastal groups." (Dench 1998, p. 9)
3. The latter, transcribed in Gifford as koonda, was glossed by that source as bearing three distinct if related meanings: 'breasts, water, rain'. (Gifford 1886, p. 303)
4. Recorded as bibijura in Gifford^[16] where however the -jura is a suffix attached to kinship terms to denote possession. (Dench 1998, p. 29)
5. Gifford supplied woora for a dog, tame or wild (Gifford 1886, p. 304)

Citations

1. Dench 1998, p. 10.
2. Gifford 1886, pp. 302–305.
3. Dench 1998, p. 6.
4. Austin 1988.
5. Dench 1998, pp. 9–10.
6. Dench 1998, p. 7.
7. Tindale 1974, p. 242.
8. Gifford 1886, p. 302.
9. Radcliffe-Brown 1930, p. 213.
10. Dench 1998, p. 8.
11. Dench 1998, p. 9.
12. Gifford 1886, p. 303.
13. Oldfield 1865, pp. 242, 283.
14. Barlee 1886, p. 306.
15. Dench 1998, p. 63.
16. Gifford 1886, p. 304.
17. Dench 1998, pp. 15, 27, 30, 37, 39.
18. Dench 1998, pp. 14, 32.

Sources

• "AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia". AIATSIS.
• Austin, Peter (1988). Aboriginal languages of the Gascoyne-Ashburton region. Vol. 1. La Trobe Working Papers in Linguistics. pp. 43–63.
• Barlee (1886). "Shark's Bay: The Majanna tribe". In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent (PDF). Vol. 1. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 306–309.
• Dench, Alan (1998). Yingkarta. Lincom Europa. pp. 1–82.
• Gifford, Edric (1886). "From North-west Cape to Thirty Miles South of the Gascoyne River: The Kakarakala tribe". In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent (PDF). Vol. 1. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 302–305.
• Oldfield, Augustus (1865). "On the aborigines of Australia". Transactions of the Ethnological Society. London. 3: 215-298.
• Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (July 1930). "The Social Organization of Australian Tribes. Part II". Oceania. 1 (2): 206–246. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1930.tb01645.x. JSTOR 40327321.
• "Tindale Tribal Boundaries" (PDF). Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Western Australia. September 2016.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Inggarda (WA)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.