Indigenous heritage

Members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are advised that the text in some of these pages may contain names and images of deceased people. Also note that some of the words, terms and descriptions may be culturally insensitive, and would be considered inappropriate today, but do reflect the author’s/creator’s attitude or that of the period in which they were written.

And a warning – this passage from the newspaper of the day contains descriptions which do not fit with the expressions of today. It is retained in this article as a part of the newspaper report for context.

It is recognised that the Peramangk people are the indigenous people who wandered the area of this district.

W. P. Shemmeld, in a letter to the Editor of the Leader, July 31 1991, stated…

The Peramangk nation, which was still numerously in existence in the late 1840s, bordered with the Adelaide Kaurna nation near the Gawler area. The Peramangk’s northern Boundary was in the North Rhine region. They bordered to the south near Birdwood with the Portaulun nation. The Portaulun’s tribal land included most of the lower Murray River districts and went as far south as Inman Valley, where it bordered with the numerous Coorong tribes.

The main people to the east of our Peramangk locals were the Ndangaruku, whose area started in the western Murray Flats and included much of the upper river region. Sandwiched between the Adelaide Kaurnas were the Ngaralta, an Adelaide Hills tribe. Most of the Adelaide Hills Aboriginal place names today are in the Ngaralta language. The Merrimeyunna tribe, whose rock paintings still exist today near Springton, were a splinter tribe of the Peramangk nation. To the north of our local Peramangks were the Ngadjuris, whose northern border reached beyond Port Augusta.

The Peramangk people however, had by the 1840s left much of their original territory, due to the establishment of farms and sheep stations by the white people; this making it difficult for the Peramangk to gather and carry out their rituals as they were inclined to do. They mixed with the white people, and relied on them for food and other handouts instead.

References

The Ochre Warriors: Peramangk culture and rock art in the Mount Lofty Ranges, Robin Coles, Richard Hunter

The Quiet Waters By - the Mount Pleasant District 1843-1993

"The Peramangk occupied an area which was well endowed with resources, food, water, firewood, and raw materials such as stone; timber and resins for tool manufacture; bark for huts, shields and canoes; pigments for painting; furred animals for warm rugs, etc. During winter, they constructed warm, dry huts of branches, bark grass and leaves, often built around the hollow side of old red gums.

They were encountered by European explorers, squatters and overlanders who passed through this area or settled there. Sometimes they visited the settlement of Adelaide in a large group to conduct ceremonial business and social gatherings, and no doubt to observe the strange appearance, habits and artifacts of the European interlopers. This contact was mostly peaceful, although the European police troopers did harass them on occasion. Not until the mid 1840's, when flocks of sheep were crowding the watering places and grazing lands of the "Hills tribe" and the animals which they hunted for food, did open conflicts arise. Even then, the source of confrontation was the right of local Aborigines to take for their own use some of the animals and material goods which the Europeans had placed on their traditional lands. There was apparently little physical violence, and in some cases food and other items were given by farmers in exchange for assistance with harvesting crops (eg wheat and potatoes), at a time when farm labour was in desperately short supply.

However, by the late 1850's the scattered documentary sources cease to mention the Hills tribe; there is only the chronicle of a growing agricultural district. Only fragmentary descriptions have been recorded of the traditional way of life of the Peramangk. This is a sad commentary on the devastating effect of European incursions upon Aboriginal Australia.

Most of the historical information relating to the Peramangk consists of passing references in European diaries, official's records, or personal memoirs. They are barely mentioned in the early ethnographic literature concerning Aborigines, written in the late nineteenth century."