Noongar
Nation | Active
1500 CE to 2215 CE
The Noongar are a constellation of peoples of Indigenous Australian descent who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast.
Traditionally, they inhabit the region from Jurien Bay to the southern coast of Western Australia, and east to what is now Ravensthorpe and Southern Cross, south west of the circumcision line separating those Aboriginal groups of central Australia that practiced male circumcision upon initiation from those who did not.
Noongar country is now understood as referring to the land occupied by fourteen different groups: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wardandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari.
The members of the collective Noongar cultural block descend from peoples who spoke several languages and dialects that were often mutually intelligible.
What is now classed as the Noongar language is a member of the large Pama-Nyungan language family.
Contemporary Noongar speak Australian Aboriginal English (a dialect of the English language) laced with Noongar words and occasionally in
flected by its grammar. Most contemporary Noongar trace their ancestry to more than one of these groups. The 2001 census figures showed that 21,000 people identified themselves as indigenous in the south-west of Western Australia.
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Brumley had been appointed captain, with Coles and Fanning both on board.
From New York City, the vessel had gone south through the Atlantic Ocean and sailed past part of the Brazilian coast and later Gough Island.
After passing Cape Horn, the ship continued to sail west, landing on October 8, 1808, at King George Sound in modern Western Australia, where a tent is made to allow crew members with scurvy to recover.
Local Noongar groups frequently visit the Americans at their tent.
Through signs the Noongar initiate potential commercial transactions by establishing their peaceful intentions through dropping their weapons.
Only after the Americans put down their firearms does a spirited trade begin between the two groups.
American goods such as beads, metal buttons and knives are often exchanged in return for Noongar-manufactured stone tools and food supplies.
Those of the crew afflicted with illness are restored to health over the following days.
The Tonquin leaves the sound on October 21 for Tongatapu, where local peoples will sell the crew stockpiles of "hogs, bread-fruit, [and] yams" among other products.
George Grey returns to Western Australia in 1839 and is again wrecked with his party at Kalbarri; they are the first Europeans to see the Gascoyne River but must then walk to ...
...Perth, surviving the journey through the efforts of Maigo, a Whadjuk Noongar, who organizes food and what water can be found (they survive by drinking liquid mud).
At about this time, Grey becomes one of the few Europeans to learn the Noongar language of southwest Western Australia.