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I Wirangu are a group of Australian Aborigines originating from the north-western coastal portion of the Eyre Peninsula and the eastern reaches of the Nullarbor Plain, in South Australia.
The traditional range of the Wirangu extends for approximately 56,000 km2 from the area south of Streaky Bay (on the western coast of the Eyre Peninsula) to the western shores of Lake Gairdner, and from there west to Ooldea, Yellabinna and the eastern reaches of the Nullarbor Plain and the northern coast of the Great Australian Bight[1].
According to the Wirangu, the Rainbow Serpent came from the west and crossed over Juldi’kapi (Ooldea), where he met i Wati Kutjara (“two men”) who began to follow him with the intent to kill him. The snake settled near the Where can we go? (freshwater outcrop about fifty kilometers south-west of Ooldea), where the paths of about one meter dug into the granite represent his footprint: here the Wati Kutjara hit him with their spears and headed west, leaving him dying , convinced they would find him dead when they returned the next day. The snake, however, managed to drag itself a few kilometers southwards onto a plain of red earth named Mul’tan’tuwhere he stopped to rest, thus leaving the red, yellow and whitish streaks that characterize the area: the red ocher represents the snake’s blood stains, the yellow ocher its urine, the white earth its tears[2]. Once recovered, the serpent headed northeast and then west, returning to its camp.[3]
At the time of the colonization of Australia the Wirangu appear to have already been under pressure from the north by the Kokatha[1].
Together with other Aboriginal groups in the area (Kokatha, Barngarla and Nauo), the Wirangu also preserve an oral tradition relating to the events of the so-called Waterloo Bay massacre of 1849.
Daisy Bates postulated that the ethnonym Wirangu came from joining the words hero (“cloud”) e like (“speech”)[4].
The Wirangu language has almost completely disappeared: linguists believe it is very similar to those of the Nauo and Barngarla[5].
Wirangu are known by a number of other names[1]:
- Hillery / Yilrea / Tidney / Tidnie / Measles (synonyms Barngarla and Kuyani)
- Jilbara / Naljara / Wanbiri (Kokatha exonyms, the first two meaning “men of the south”, the last meaning “men of the coast”)
- Ngoleiadjara (esonimo Yankuntjatjara)
- Bread (“man”)
- Wangon (name from the Wirangu language meaning “excrement”)
- Willeuroo (exonym Barngarla meaning “men of the west”)
- Lost (also used for Ngalia)
- Wirrong / confusion / Wirrunga / A shame
- ^ a b c (EN) Tyndale, N.B., Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper NamesWirangu (SA), Australian National University Press, 1974, ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.
- ^ (EN) Oceania, Tribal Migrations and Myths Centring on Ooldea, South Australiavol. 12, no. 1, September 1941, p. 1–20, DOI:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1941.tb00343.xJSTOR 40327930.
- ^ (EN) Taplin, G., Folklore, manners, customs and languages of the South Australian aborigines (PDF), E. Spiller, Acting Government Printer, 1879.
- ^ Daisy Bates, Aborigines of the West Coast of South Australiain Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. 42, 1918, p. 152–167.
- ^ (EN) Hercus, L. A., A grammar of the Wirangu language from the West Coast of South Australia, Pacific Linguistics, 1999, ISBN 978-0-858-83505-4.
- (EN) Mathews, R. H., Divisions of the South Australian Aborigines, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 39, n. 161, gennaio 1900, p. 78–91+93, JSTOR 983545.
- (EN) Monaghan, P., Going for Wombat — Transformations in Wirangu and the Scotdesco Community on the Far West Coast of South Australiain Oceania, vol. 82, no. 1, March 2012, p. 45–61, DOI:10.1002/j.1834-4461.2012.tb00118.xJSTOR 23209616.
