Uutaalnganu

The Night Island Kawadji, or Uutaalnganu,[1] were an Indigenous Australian group of Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland.[2][3] The name is also used collectively for several tribes in this area, such as the Pontunj / Jangkonj (Yanganyu), whose language is unconfirmed.[4]

Name

Kawadji formerly referred to a people, who inhabited Night Island and the coastal strip opposite. It now refers primarily to a modern aggregation of six tribes, collectively known by the same ethnonym kawadji which means 'people of the sandbeach' (pama malnkana).[2][5] These tribes, the Umpithamu/Koko Ompindamo, Pakadji, Yintyingka, Otati, Umpila and Pontunj[6] were the traditional owners and users of the coastal areas east of the Great Dividing Range of northeastern Cape York from Oxford Bay to Princess Charlotte Bay.[7]

Language

The Night Island Kawadji spoke, according to Norman Tindale, Yankonyu, a dialect of the Umpila language spoken by the Umpila and Pontunj, to whom they were closely related.[8][9]

People

The traditional Kawadji of Night Island were a small population and intermarried with clans of the mainland Barungguan.[9]

Economy

The Night Island Kawadji were known for their skill in building and then employing double-outrigger wooden canoes (tango) in adventurous voyages to outlying reefs where they would hunt for dugong, turtles, and the eggs of both sea birds and turtles.[7]

Curiosity

Narcisse Pelletier survived a shipwreck of a French merchantman Saint Paul in 1858, when he was abandoned by the crew. He was taken in by the Kawadji/Pama Malngkana, with linguistic and other evidence pointing to the area of the Uutaalnganu. He stayed with them 17 years.[10]

Alternative names

The following list of alternative names refers to the original people of Night Island.

• Kawadji (This term was also an exonym used by the Kaantju and other tribes within the interior, bearing the general sense of 'east' (kawai)
• Night Island people[8]

Names of other peoples also called 'Kawadji' -

• Mälnkänidji ( formed from malqkan (beach) and (-idja (a suffix meaning 'belonging to')
• Jangkonju (a name for their language, shared by the Pontunj)
• Yankonyu

Notes

Citations

1. Rigsby & Chase 2014, p. 313 n.4.
2. Tindale 1974.
3. Y211 Uutaalnganu at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
4. Y38 Yanganyu at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
5. Thomson 1933, pp. 457–458.
6. Thomson 1933, pp. 456–457.
7. Haddon 2011, p. 266.
8. Tindale 1974, p. 175.
9. Hale & Tindale 1933, p. 70.
10. Anderson 2009. sfn error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2009 (help)

Sources

• Haddon, A. C. (2011) [First published 1935]. Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits. Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-17986-7.
• Hale, H. M.; Tindale, N.B. (1933). "Aborigines of Princess Charlotte Bay, North Queensland". Records of the South Australian Museum. Adelaide. 5 (1): 64–116.
• Rigsby, Bruce; Chase, Athol (2014). "The Sandbeach People and Dugong hunters of Eastern Cape York Peninsula: property in land and sea country". In Peterson, Nicolas; Rigsby, Bruce (eds.). Customary marine tenure in Australia. Sydney University Press. pp. 307–350. ISBN 978-1-743-32389-2.
• Sharp, R. Lauriston (March 1939). "Tribes and Totemism in North-East Australia". Oceania. 9 (3): 254–275. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1939.tb00232.x. JSTOR 40327744.
• Anderson, Stephanie (2018) [2009]. Pelletier: The Forgotten Castaway of Cape York. Melbourne Books. ISBN 978-1-922-12902-4.
• Thomson, Donald F. (1933). "The Hero Cult, Initiation and Totemism on Cape York". Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 63: 453–537. doi:10.2307/2843801. JSTOR 2843801.
• Thomson, Donald F. (July–December 1934). "The Dugong Hunters of Cape York". Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 64: 237–263. doi:10.2307/2843809. JSTOR 2843809.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Kawadji (QLD)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.