Djaru people facts for kids
The Djaru people are an Aboriginal Australian people of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Contents
Language
Djaru is a member of the Ngumbin language family, and is related to Walmajarri.
Country
The Djaru people ranged along Margaret River as far as the Mary River Junction. Their land took in the headwaters of Christmas Creek, ran eastward to Cummins Range, Sturt Creek Station up to the border with the Northern Territory. Its northern boundary lay in the vicinity of the Nicholson Station homestead, and the headwaters of the Ord River above the Dixon Range, and including the areas east of Alice Downs as far as Hall's Creek and the Margaret River gorge. In Norman Tindale's estimation the total land range encompassed something like 13,000 square miles (34,000 km2). The area is now known as the Kutjungka Region.
Trade
The Djaru, like the Gija, much admired the composite spears, fitted with barbed pegs, of their southern neighbours, fashioned from mulga hardwood and witjuti bush shrubs and to obtain them would exchange them for stone knives and pressure-flaked spear blades (tjimbala), and pearl shells which filtered down from the coast where they had been collected by the distant Jawi.
Alternative names
- Charrau
- Deharu
- Djara (? misprint)
- Djaro
- Jarroo, Jarrou, Jarrau
- Jaruo
- Jaruru
- Ka:biri.(Margaret River group)
- Karbery
- Kodjangana (northern Djaru)
- Njining, Njinin, Nyinin, Nining, Neening.(language name)
- Ruby Creek tribe
Some words
- jaji (kangaroo).
