History of unique skin cloak forgotten or attached to another Tribe?
Ipparityi (Amelia Taylor/Savage) 1928, photo taken by Norman Tindale, in old Police Barracks at the rear of the South Australia Museum.
“Ngarna (A giant) was a powerful man and club thrower who lived on Guuranda(Yorke Peninsula) One day he stood at the Point of Waraldi (Wardang Island) and saw a woman sitting miles away across at a particular point on Warri (The Western Yorke Peninsula), The woman was fishing and at the same time had a baby tied to her back. Ngarna threw his Wirri (Club) miles across the water and hit the woman in the head. He used so much strength when he threw the wirri that his foot imprinted on a rock. The woman was turned into a large stone which still shows today. Near it is another rock with a pattern on it like the rectangular pattern seen on wallaby skin cloaks, which is a woman’s Bhalda.”
The story of ‘Ngarna’ - Waraldi (Wardang Island) Guuranda (The Yorke Peninsula) ‘The Foot and Toe’ of this landmass.
The beautiful lady wearing the skin cloak (Bhalda in Nharangga language) is Ipparityi, also known as ‘Amelia Taylor or Amelia Savage’ who was the daughter of the once-famous Ityamaiitpinna (‘King Rodney’) who was the first local the British met when they arrived in Adelaide. Ipparityi is famous for this photo and, at the time, was considered the last fluent speaker of the language of a prominent Adelaide Tribe grouped as the Kaurna or Adelaide Tribes.
She was also my 4th Great-grandmother taken to Kangaroo Island Nellie Raminyemmerin’s sister through my Grandfathers mother. However, she had lived most of her adult life in my Grandfather’s father’s country with the Nharangga people of the Yorke Peninsula.
Sunset @ Burgiyana - Point Pearce Community, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia.
The story that you read comes from the Nharangga people. When I see the photo, I see a beautiful ancestor on my Grandfather’s mother’s side. I see history and culture that has been part of my people for tens of thousands of years in my Grandfather’s country that connects and binds our Nharangga women to law and culture.
Due to the removal of many from the Adelaide area and rotation to various Aboriginal Missions, many other ancestors from the Adelaide area, including Ipparityi’s Auntie Maria Welch (Sister of King Rodney) and the adopted children of Rebecca Lartalare/Glanville, also lived on the Yorke Peninsula and at Point Pearce Mission.
1930 'LAST OF HER TRIBE', Chronicle (Adelaide, SA: 1895 - 1954), 16 January, p. 72.
The Bhalda is a rare and unique specimen now held in the Adelaide Museum, which John Howard Johnson acquired between 1898 and the museum in 1900. However, Ipparityi did not craft the garment and did not inherit it from her Tribe, yet today it is associated with the history of the Adelaide Tribes.
The Bhalda, which is of Idja Wadla (wallaby skin), was made by Louisa Eggington, a Nharangga woman of Warri Guuranda(South-West Yorke Peninsula).
["Louisa Eggington a Narranga woman from Southern Yorke Peninsula made one of the most beautiful cloaks I have seen...It features square pelts and magnificent geometric diamond-shaped incisions on the skin... In 1928 Herbert Hale and Norman Tindale from the South Australian Museum interviewed Ivaritji a Kaurna woman from the Adelaide area. She specifically requested to be photographed in this wallaby skin cloak and this was typical of the clothing she remembered wearing as a child. This cloak is currently on display in the South Australian Museums Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery"]
Aboriginal skin cloaks - Fabri Blacklock Assistant Curator, Koori History and Culture, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
Louisa Eggington. 1935. Photo by Norman Tindale. AA338/1/95. South Australia Museum
The story of Louisa is similar to Amelia’s in that Louisa also held a similar position being a keeper of the Nharangga language and culture. She passed on valuable knowledge about the craft and design of our Bhalda(Skin Cloak/Rug) and stories that bind all Nharangga to Guuranda (The Yorke Peninsula).
1936 'MATTERS OF CURRENT INTEREST', Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), 16 July, p. 50.
[The natives were skilled hunters, and at Pondalowie (stony waterhole) they used to drive the kangaroos onto a peninsula through a narrow neck and spear them at their leisure. The rugs made from kangaroo or wallaby skins and sewn with tendons were beautifully finished. In order to render them more pliable, the skin, after being dried and scraped, was cut into shape, folded from one corner to another, a small stick being used as a gauge for the size of the pattern. The skin was then folded from the other corner on the same side, with the result that a series of diamonds was formed, and this caused the rug to be much softer. There is an excellent specimen of this kind made by Mrs. George Egglington(Louisa) from wallaby skins in the Adelaide Museum.]
The Register (Adelaide, SA: 1901 - 1929) Tue 24 Jan 1922. Page 4, OUR ABORIGINES.
South Australia Museum (Image may be subject to copyright)
King ‘Shooting’ Tommy - Photo from Point Pearce Community
Lousia married and had children with a Nharangga man - Dan Angie, while living on the Point Pearce mission until just before the 1900s (see Kartinyeri, D. (2002). Narungga nation). She then married a white Kangaroo Hunter, Mr George Eggington/Eglinton, receiving an exemption to leave the community. At the time Louisa had moved from Point Pearce, she would have been still in her 40s. The first petition to be sent about conditions on the Point Pearce mission was in 1895, and Point Pearce was at the forefront of Aboriginal protest through the first half of the 20th century. This era was a hard time for the Nharangga people living under the control of Aboriginal Protectors.
Louisa had not enjoyed mission life, as with many Nharangga ancestors. The Nharangga ancestors chose to live and raise their children at Point Pearce as it was a place to set up a school and, at the same time, a place to be close to our stories and Fishing areas. Nharangga ancestors walked 60 km from Wallaroo to set up Point Pearce. My 2nd Great Grandfather, John Stansbury/Sansbury, was a young man when he helped clear the land for the mission was incorporated.
Once the Nharangga people had arrived at the mission, their lives were restricted and controlled; for many Nharangga, there would be no escape. Some did leave the reserve; however, one of the only ways was to ask for an exemption certificate. In many cases, Nharangga did not even have to ask to be exempt; they found themselves, their partners and their children all being exempt or imprisoned, not just for drunkenness but for minor and even unusual reasons.
[“A man named John Buckskin for getting drunk was expelled for life with his wife and three young children…Buckskin no doubt deserves his punishment, but I consider it most cruel to expel the woman and her children who will be without food or shelter”]
[…Robert Wanganeen has been ordered to get rid of a female dog which he has tied up at his cottage, as it is a rule that each family may keep one dog only, but no female dogs are allowed on the station. If he does not comply, he and his family are to be expelled…]
- Yorke Peninsula - Royal Commission on the Aborigines; 1913.
Chronicle (Adelaide, SA 1895 - 1954), Thursday 11 June 1942, page 21
Being exempt and marrying a white husband enabled Louisa to return to Marion Bay and retain a partial public cultural life. Ipparityi had lived on Point Pearce until 1919. Many have said it is highly likely she was living there before the turn of the 19th Century. My great-grandmother Vera Smith spoke of Ipparityi when she resided at Point Pearce in the building that would later become and now was the Hospital. She said she was so sweet and had a laugh that stood out. She also spoke of her expert mat-making and how she would collect reeds from a waterhole at Reef Point, not far from the mission.
Ipparityi lived on the Yorke Peninsula well before 1900, perhaps a decade after Point Pearce in 1867. The photo below is by Duryea, who was in Wallaroo before 1893. It contains an image of Ipparityi. It was presented to the museum by Mr J Major and taken between 1860 and 1880. It also has a younger King ‘Shooting’ Tommy of the Nharangga in the photo. King Tommy was still living in a Wurli at Wallaroo when Papa John Sansbury was seven years old.
Photo ‘Kadina Natives” (Ipparityi is in the centre of the photo in the white shirt with the dogs) The man on the far left with the Pipe is a younger King ‘Shooting’ Tommy. AA80/1/2/1 South Australia Museum.
According to a memo by E.K. Hamilton in 1885 given to the Aborigines Office, there were ‘54 Natives’ on Point Pearce, two being the last of the Adelaide Tribes. These two would have been Ipparityi and perhaps Alfred Spender (Adopted son of Rebecca Lartalare/Glanville)
[“Of the 54 Natives, 43 belong to the Peninsula, and nearly all have been rared on the mission station. 2 claim to be the last of the Adelaide Tribe, three belong to the Riverton district, 4 from the South-East and 1 from the River Murray”]
- Memo by E.K. Hamilton from the Aborigines Office, Adelaide, 31st March 1885, reporting on a visit to the Point Pierce
(Kaurna woman Maria Welch(Ipparityi’s Auntie) arrived at Point Pearce in 1900. Thomas and Timothy Adams, who were the sons of a Kaurna woman named 'Mary Ann Kudnartu’ arrived on Point Pearce in 1888)
In 1919 Ipparityi was still living on Point Pearce. In 1920, she met and married her second husband, an African American man named ‘Savage’. Not being ‘Aboriginal’, he was not allowed to live with Ipparityi at Point Pearce, along with many other Nharangga who were exempt. Ipparityi moved with her husband to live in Moonta at a place called ‘the Crossroads’. Section 1233 of the Hundred, Wallaroo, was part of the Yorkes Peninsula Aboriginal Mission Inc and is still part of Point Pearce today. When you visit the lot, you can see where Ipparityi once planted and grew her vegetables. Mr savage tried to obtain the lease in 1922 by writing to the Commissioner of Crown Lands however was unsuccessful. In his second letter in 1923, Ipparityi herself added a message at the bottom:
[“I am writing to you sir about this block of land I am living on. It is a native block. Mr South told me I had nothing to do with it. I am a Aboriginal of Adelaide and I want to know from you Sir whether I can have it back to get a living of it. I yours truly native woman Mrs Amelia Savage”]
quoted in Gara, Tom (1990) The Life of Ivaritji.
Many local residents of Moonta remembered Ipparityi when she lived there, which was where she also saw her last days. She would often visit my great-great-grandmother Alice Smith(nee Yates).
Chronicle (Adelaide, SA 1895 - 1954), Saturday 17 December 1927, page 54. (Trove)
It appears John Howard Johnson had attained the Bhalda during his interview with Lousia and her husband at Marion Bay after Louisa had moved from Point Pearce. Considering the Bhalda is also an essential aspect of Nharangga culture, Louisa was likely influenced in some way for it to be handed over easily to Howard and then the museum. Johnson's interview and extraction of language and cloak from Louisa appear to have been more narrated by Mr Eglinton, as Louisa had to correct the language mistakes with Norman Tindale when he interviewed her in 1836 when she was an old lady.
When Norman Tindale interviewed Ipparityi in 1929, she told him that she considered the Nharangga "to speak her language, but without clearness". When Tindale interviewed Lousia in 1936, she said to him that she had known Ipparityi and that the dialects had much in common, though noting that Ipparityi "was hard to understand". They would have been around the same age or born in the same decade, so I am guessing they had met in their 30s-40s. This beautiful garment crafted by Louisa is not something you can buy off the shelf. It connects to culture, song and dance to many groups who have prepared them over tens of thousands of years.
Nharangga Song and Dance
Nharangga Song and Dance
Nharangga women sit and sing using a skin rug like a drum during our ceremonies, as practised in many other groups across this landmass.
Nharangga Song and Dance
Peramangk of the Adelaide Hills dancing. Wiki Photo - Tony Finnis
Murray River Victoria. Archive.org.
The Bhalda takes over a year to make, and the pattern applied can also signify the area and Tribe of the designer by colouring them with red ochre or other native pigments. Besides the pattern design, it was the custom to mark the skins used for rug making with various other, and more irregular, methods, which can indicate proprietorship.
The common law regards property rights as ‘fundamental’,
Where property belongs to an individual or tribal collective in real form, such as personal effects, weapons etc., or in an abstract form, such as song, markings, orchestrations, dance etc., that property is protected in law and cannot be removed arbitrarily by theft, fraud or other illegal means.
In various areas across the country, they are decorated and painted with ochre, recording history in art. The many processes involved in making these cloaks are complex and time-consuming. Some 'Bhalda's' were created from up to seventy skins collected a year before making the garment began. Others were collected and crafted over a lifetime. A piece of skin every year starting as a child, then painted and sewn on every year. The garment is then buried with the individual and tells their life story.
Photograph of sewn possum skin of Wurundgeri origin. By Lentisco 23/2/06 all copyright released. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
First Painting of the original people in Skin Cloaks(Dancing). William Barak (c. 1824-1903); original uploader was John Darke at en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The gradual end to making skin cloaks came with colonisation. During the early colonial days, there was no museum to hold and preserve the veils, leaving them vulnerable to insect attacks. When the original ancestors died, they also discarded their belongings. Some ancestors were wrapped and buried in their skin cloaks after their death. The issuing of blankets to our ancestors in 1814 caused them to suffer colds and severe respiratory problems when it rained, as they did not provide the same waterproof qualities as the skin cloaks. A Bhalda also acts as a raincoat when worn inside out.
Colonists took a keen interest in the cloaks hanging them over their beds, often mimicking original people by using them to hold a baby and even by being wrapped and buried in the skins. Many colonists would also steal, burn or destroy the cloaks during the atrocities they carried out on the original people to justify their land grab.
Louisa made her skin cloak from Dama(Tammar) Wallaby's skin. The Mainland Tammar Wallaby became extinct in mainland South Australia in the 1920s due to loss of habitat, hunting and fox predation. Mr Eglinton, being a Kangaroo hunter, would have contributed to Louisa's rapid time in making the Bhalda and their slow population decline. In 2004, 10 Mainland Tammar Wallabies were released back into Innes National Park on the Yorke Peninsula. Western Australia, Kangaroo Island, and mainland South Australia all have distinct populations of Tammar Wallaby, making the Bhalda even more unique.
Tammar Wallaby Moving. Image by Petr Baum, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. No changes were made to this image.
The Bhalda would be worth a lot of money today. However, through the eyes of many Nharangga, it is a priceless item that should acknowledge Louisa and Nharangga's culture and heritage.
Ipparityi's photograph wearing the Bhalda makes it lost in time. Louisa's unique ancient design and her Tribe are missing from its history, as the cloak is now more attached to the Kaurna (Adelaide) tribes, not specifically Nharangga. These two women are both linked to my history and connection to land and culture. I am a descendant of a Northern Nharangga woman connected by culture, law and marriage to Lousia. The cloak is a unique part of Nharangga history, culture and heritage, not uniquely the Kaurna (Adelaide Tribes).
When I visited the museum a few months after being away from Adelaide for so long, I was so interested in my Adelaide heritage and Ipparityi that a few questions just slipped my mind, including that I had read previously of Louisa making the cloak. The lady in the museum was accommodating and interested in my knowledge of ancient history. She also showed me some of the Adelaide Tribes artifacts being remade today.
State Government Photographer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
A piece of the cloak is hanging over in the Museum for you to view. When looking at the Bhalda I noticed the inside pattern and stitching. I said, "Wow" The lady from the Museum then told me how the whole design was unique to the Adelaide Tribes and did not mention anything about Louisa Eglinton or Nharangga culture and story, although I think her name is attached at the bottom as the maker.
There is currently a Hotel ready to be built in Adelaide that will be named after Ipparityi and designed to resemble "her" cloak.
[“He said construction was now set for mid-year….South Australian-based architecture firm Troppo designed the original $11-million eco-concept hotel with external cladding to resemble the fur skin cloak of Kaurna ancestor Ivaritji”]
"Traditional" eight-storey hotel replaces Whitmore Square eco concept.
Even if the Bhalda is similar to the design of the Kaurna (Adelaide Tribes) or any other Tribe, the unique style, markings, and story belong to the Nharangga people, culture and heritage. There are no artifacts in the Adelaide Museum belonging to the Nharangga, the Museum told me there were only a few stone axes sitting in the basement. However, there is no allocated section of Nharangga artifacts. Many Nharangga artifacts are in local museums and the community's possession today. The main item Nharangga has of our ancient craft should not sit in the Kaurna (Adelaide Tribes) section of the Museum with no detailed acknowledgement of Louisa Eggington, Nharangga women, people and culture.
