The Dharawal people, also spelt Tharawal and other variants, are an
Aboriginal Australian
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Island ...
people, identified by the
Dharawal 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, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meanin ...
s with ties of
kinship, scattered along the coastal area of what is now the
Sydney basin in
New South Wales.
Etymology
''Dharawal'' means
cabbage palm Cabbage palm is a common name for several species of palms or palm-like plants:
*''Cordyline fruticosa'', a tropical tree native to Asia and Polynesia
*''Corypha utan'', an East Asian fan palm (including Northern Australia)
*'' Euterpe oleracea'', ...
.
Country
According to ethnologist
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 the ...
, traditional Dharawal lands encompass some from the south of
Sydney Harbour, through
Georges River
The Georges River, also known as Tucoerah River, is an intermediate tide-dominated drowned valley estuary, located to the south and west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The river travels for approximately in a north and then easterly ...
,
Botany Bay
Botany Bay (Dharawal: ''Kamay''), an open oceanic embayment, is 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 and the Cooks Ri ...
,
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. Por ...
and south beyond the
Shoalhaven River
The Shoalhaven River is a perennial river that rises from the Southern Tablelands and flows into an open mature wave dominated barrier estuary near Nowra on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia.
Location and features
The Shoalhave ...
to the
Beecroft Peninsula
Beecroft Peninsula is the northern headland of Jervis Bay, on Australia's east coast. On the western and southern sides of the peninsula steep sandstone cliffs rise out of the ocean, up to 91 metres at its southernmost point, Point Perpendicular. W ...
. Their inland extent reaches
Campbelltown and
Camden.
Clans
The
Gweagal
The Gweagal (also spelt Gwiyagal) are a clan of the Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are traditional custodians of the southern geographic areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Country
The Gweagal lived on t ...
were also known as the "Fire Clan". They are said to be the first people to first make contact with
Captain Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...
. 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 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 designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...
for
Helensburgh in 2011.
Lifestyle
The whale is the main totem for the Dharawal people. The historical artwork (
rock engraving
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...
s) 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, cal ...
and
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 ...
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, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 ye ...
can be found on hundreds of rock surfaces and in the many dozens of
rock shelters 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 ...
, celebrating successful hunts and whale strandings. Those engravings are marred by recent European inclusions. The original Jibbon point engravings (pecked and abraided
petroglyph
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other description ...
s) show a pod of
killer whale
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pat ...
s hunting a seal.
It has been claimed that there were no remaining descendants of the Dharawal people; however, after the ''
Mabo v Queensland'' verdict and the ''
Native Title Act 1993'' there have been claims lodged by descendants of the
Wodiwodi
The Wodiwodi also pronounced Whardi Whardi (according to an interview with Joan Mc Grady- early 1990s) peoples are the Indigenous Australian people of New South Wales, a sub-group of the Dharawal nation.
Language
The Wodiwodi language, considere ...
clan who claim to have survived the early decimations and gradually moved back into the areas formally occupied by other clans. These Wodi Wodi clansmen are claiming lineage to the Dharawal tribe. Others claim descent from the
Gweagal
The Gweagal (also spelt Gwiyagal) are a clan of the Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are traditional custodians of the southern geographic areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Country
The Gweagal lived on t ...
clan.
The Dharawal people lived mainly by the produce of local plants, fruits and vegetables and by fishing and gathering
shellfish
Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater enviro ...
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 middens 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:
See also
*
Eora
*
Gweagal
The Gweagal (also spelt Gwiyagal) are a clan of the Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are traditional custodians of the southern geographic areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Country
The Gweagal lived on t ...
Notes
Citations
Sources
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Further reading
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Trovean
Worldcatentries)
External links
*
Local Aboriginal Land Council on Facebook
{{Authority control
Aboriginal peoples of New South Wales