Wandandian Explained

The Wandandian are an Aboriginal Australian people of the South Coast of New South Wales with connections to the Yuin and Tharawal nations.

Country

The Wandandian lands extended over an estimated 1400mi2 from Ulladulla to the Shoalhaven River and Nowra. To their south were the Walbanga. The tribes to their west were the Ngunawal and Walgalu.

People

Norman Tindale cites a report by a Richard Dawsey reprinted in one of the early volumes edited by Edward Micklethwaite Curr, regarding the tribes from Jervis Bay to Mount Dromedary, as referring to the Wandandian. According to this reference, the tribes divided themselves into two classes, the Piindri (tree climbers) and the Kathoongal (fishermen), and that according to their mythological lore the Earth had been once devastated and had to be repopulated by people from the Moon.

Aboriginal union organiser for the Builders Labourers Federation Kevin "Cookie" Cook was a Yuin and Wandandian man.

Some words

• barbatha or baiing (father)
• meunda or mane (mother)
• moomaga (white man)
• tchingar (starfish, hence "policeman", since like the marine animal, the latter seize and detain

Alternative names

• Tharumba
• Kurial-yuin (meaning "men of the north")
• Murraygaro
• Jervis Bay tribe

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Book: Cook, Kevin . Making Change Happen: Black & White Activists Talk to Kevin Cook about Aboriginal, Union and Liberation Politics . 2013 . ANU Press . 9 .
• Book: Dawsey, Richard . From Jervis Bay to Mount Dromedary . 1887 . The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent . Curr . Edward Micklethwaite . Edward Micklethwaite Curr . 3 . 420–423 . J. Ferres . Melbourne . https://archive.org/download/australianracei02currgoog/australianracei02currgoog.pdf .
• Book: Howitt, Alfred William . The native tribes of south-east Australia . Alfred William Howitt . 1904 . .
• News: Indigenous rights organiser Kevin Cook 'opened the pathways' for all Australians . The Canberra Times . 19 August 2015 . 19 December 2018 . .
• The Bunan Ceremony of New South Wales . Mathews . R. H. . Robert Hamilton Mathews . . 1908 . 9 . 10 . 327–344 . 10.1525/aa.1896.9.10.02a00010 . 658900 .
• Book: Slattery, Deirdre . Australian Alps: Kosciuszko, Alpine and Namadgi National Parks . 2015 . . 978-1-486-30172-0 .
• Book: Tindale, Norman Barnett . Wandandian (NSW) . Norman Tindale . 1974 . Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names . . http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindaletribes/wandandian.htm .