Dharawal

The Tharawal people and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people, who spoke a dialect of the Yuin language.^[2] Traditionally, they lived as hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans with ties of kinship, scattered along the coastal area of what is now the Wollongong, Port Kembla, Sutherland Shire and Campbelltown regions in New South Wales.

Dharawal means cabbage palm.^[3]

According to ethnologist Norman Tindale, traditional Dharawal lands encompass some 450 square miles (1,200 km²) from the southern shore of Botany Bay, along the Georges River to Campbelltown and then south through Port Hacking, Wollongong to the Shoalhaven River and the Beecroft Peninsula.^[4]

The Gweagal clan of the area now referred to as the Sutherland Shire were also known as the "Fire Clan". They are said to be the first people to make contact with Captain Cook. 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.^[5]

The Cubbitch Barta or Cobbitty Barta (meaning place of white pipe clay)^[6] clan were located in the Narellan and Campbelltown region of what is now the outer south-western suburbs of Sydney. They were also known by the early British colonists as the "Cowpastures tribe" as this was the area where the lost cattle from the First Fleet were rediscovered. A registered Indigenous land use agreement was made by modern representatives of the clan for Helensburgh in 2011.^[7]

The country of the Wadi Wadi clan (also known to the colonists as the "Five Islands tribe" referring to the Five Islands just off the coast of Port Kembla) includes the Illawarra, Wollongong and Port Kembla areas. The Dharawal name for the Five Islands is Woolyungah, which is now incorporated into the name of the adjacent city of Wollongong.^[8]

The whale is the main totem for the Dharawal people.^[9] The historical artwork (rock engravings) of the Dharawal people is visible on the sandstone surfaces throughout their language area and charcoal and ochre paintings, drawings and hand stencils 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. According to an early Dharawal informant, Biddy Giles,^[b] these images commemorated notable events, a successful hunt and the stranding of a whale.^{[11] [12]}

The Dharawal people lived mainly by the produce of local plants, fruits and vegetables and by fishing and gathering shellfish 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.

Source: Tindale 1974, p. 198

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