Garawa
Straddling the Queensland-Northern Territory border, the Garawa (alternatively Garrwa, Karawa, Karrawar, Kurrawar, Korrawa, Grawa, Leearawa, Kariwa, Wulungwara (horde at Wollongorang), Wollongorang (place name)) occupied around 16,300 square kilometres of rocky dissected plateau country between Borroloola east of the McArthur River and Doomadgee and the Nicholson River in Queensland.
They were initially an inland people, with the Yanuwa occupying the coastal plain to their north. However, in early historical times, the Garawa ventured to the coast at Tully Inlet, where they mixed with their coastal neighbours. Today, they consider the area along the Gulf of Carpentaria coastline part of their country while maintaining an identity as a freshwater people — distinct from saltwater peoples to the north and east, —exploiting riverine ecosystems and terrestrial game rather than marine environments.
Their language, along with the neighbouring Waanyi language, belongs to the Garrwan language family, with two dialects—Heavy Garrwa, a.k.a. Eastern Garrwa, Gunindirri or Kunindirri, and Light Garrwa, a.k.a. Western Garrwa. While it shared some features with surrounding Pama-Nyungan tongues, it also displayed innovative forms rare in other Australian languages. Its place in the Pama-Nyungan/non-Pama-Nyungan divide remains indeterminate.
The Garawa fashioned highly prized and widely traded kulunja knife blades from quartzite mined at a site around fifteen kilometres south of the Redbanks Copper Mine.
Ludwig Leichhardt utilised a Garawa trade route on his 1848 journey from the Darling Downs to Port Essington. His journal described moderately high concentrations of people living in substantial dwellings, exploiting emu traps, fish traps, fishing weirs and wells with a sophisticated method of detoxifying the otherwise extremely poisonous cycad nuts.
After copper was discovered in Garawa country in 1916, pollution from the Redbank Copper Mine's outflow affected the nearby Hanrahan's Creek, the Wentworth Aggregation wetland, Wollogorang Station and sacred sites such as Moonlight Falls.
Missing links:
Wollongorang
Borroloola
McArthur Rive
Doomadgee
Nicholson River
Garrwan language family,
kulunja knife blades
Redbanks Copper Mine.
Ludwig Leichhardt
Darling Downs
Port Essington
Hanrahan's Creek
Wentworth Aggregation wetland
Moonlight Falls
