Aboriginal Settlement
- For early human settlement of Australia see Prehistory of Australia
The Adelaide plains were inhabited by the Kaurna tribe before European settlement, their territory extending from what is now Cape Jervis to Port Broughton. The Kaurna lived in family groups called yerta, a word which also referred to the area of land which supported the family group. Each yerta was the responsibility of Kaurna adults who inherited the land and had an intimate knowledge of its resources and features. The Kaurna led a nomadic existence within the Yerta confines in large family groups of around 30. The area where the Adelaide city centre now stands was called "Tarndanya", which translates as "male red kangaroo rock", an area along the south bank of what is now called the River Torrens. Kaurna numbers were greatly reduced by at least two devastating epidemics of smallpox which preceded European settlement, having been transported downstream along the Murray River. When European settlers arrived in 1836, estimates of the Kaurna population ranged from 300 to 1000 people.
Read more about this topic: History Of Adelaide
Famous quotes containing the words aboriginal and/or settlement:
“John Eliot came to preach to the Podunks in 1657, translated the Bible into their language, but made little progress in aboriginal soul-saving. The Indians answered his pleas with: ‘No, you have taken away our lands, and now you wish to make us a race of slaves.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program. Connecticut: A Guide to Its Roads, Lore, and People (The WPA Guide to Connecticut)
“The Puritans, to keep the remembrance of their unity one with another, and of their peaceful compact with the Indians, named their forest settlement CONCORD.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)