Portaulun people

See also: Portaulun language

The Portaulun were an indigenous Australian people of South Australia.

Country

The Portaulun's territory was estimated by Norman Tindale to encompass roughly 300 square miles (780 km²), along the western bank of the Murray River from Wood Hill to Wellington and Pomanda Point. Their westward extension ran to Grote Hill.^[1]

Social organization

The Portaulun were divided into clans, the name of two of which are known:-

• Warawalde
• Welindjeri

The Welindjeri name is a post-colonial, being formed on the introduced toponym of Wellington, and thus meaning 'belonging to the Wel.'^[2]

History of contact

The last Portaulun full-blood was David Ngunaiponi, who died in 1967.^[1]

Notable people

David Unaipon.

Alternative names

• Putjin
• Warawalde
• Welindjeri
• Welinyeri
• Pomunda (toponym, Pomunda Point)
• Poomunda
• Wellington tribe^[2]

Notes

Citations

1. Tindale 1974, p. 217.
2. Tindale 1974, p. 218.

Sources

• Brown, A. R. (July–December 1918). "Notes on the Social Organization of Australian Tribes". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 48: 222–253. doi:10.2307/2843422. JSTOR 2843422.
• Hawker, J. C. (1899). Early experiences in South Australia. Adelaide: E.S. Wigg & Son.
• Parkhouse, T. A. (April 1936). "Some words of the Australian autochthone". Mankind. 2 (1): 16–19–253. doi:10.1111/j.1835-9310.1936.tb00920.x.
• Taplin, George (1878) [First published 1873]. "The Narrinyeri" (PDF). The Native Tribes of South Australia. Adelaide: E.S. Wigg & Son. pp. 1–156.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Portaulun (SA)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.