History of The Name
The name "Kaurna" was not widely used until popularised by South Australian Museum Ethnographer Norman B. Tindale in the 1920s.
The term 'Kaurna' was first recorded by Missionary Surgeon Dr William Wyatt (1879: 24) for 'Encounter Bay Bob's Tribe'. At the same time he recorded 'Meeyurna' for 'Onkaparinga Jack's Tribe'. Kaurna most likely derives from kornar, the word for 'people' in the neighbouring Ramindjeri/Ngarrindjeri language . Mullawirraburka (Onkaparinga Jack), also known to the colonists as 'King John', was one of Teichelmann & Schurmann's main sources. Encounter Bay Bob, as his name suggests, came from Encounter Bay (Victor Harbor) and was most likely a fully initiated elder Ramindjeri man. Thus Meyunna is probably an endonym and would linguistically be preferable as the name for this language group as Lewis O'Brien suggested in the mid 1990s. However, they are now universally known as the Kaurna people.
Read more about this topic: Kaurna Language
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