[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

57

Nyangumarta are not a Western Desert dialectal group. Their language is quite distinct
from the Western Desert’s Wati-language, and is classified by 0’Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin
1966 as Marrngu, the latter sharing between 21 and 25 per cent of cognates with the Western
Desert language O’Grady 1964: map preceding p. vii, even though their traditional area
touches the Great Sandy Desert in the east and north-east. The Nyangumarta section system
comprises, as we have seen for the Pilbara in general, the tenninology used throughout the
Western Desert. Their proximity to the desert makes them likely actors in the diffusion of the
system into eastward areas, a situation that is reinforced by some claims that Nyangumarta
were, in fact, further inland until White settlement, and that Karajarri Karadjeri was spoken
along the coast previously.“ A similar argument is advanced by Tindale 1974:253 regarding
the Njamal, the south-.. .. .n neighbours of the Nyangumarta. He explained that they were
gaining territorial areas west of the Shaw River in the late pre-contact eta at the expense
of Kariara Kariera, Kariyarra and Yindjibamdi areas. I will come back to some of these
migrations below.

With regard to the section system, the situation is made more complex by a varying
application of the section terminology between the Coastal and the Inland Nyangumarta.
Tindale 1974:253 recognised the “different and conflicting arrangements of four—class
social organization” between the two groups, which he writes are “preventing intennarriage”.
O’Grady and Mooney 1973 report the following systems:

Coastal northern Njangumardu Inland ’ n Njangumarda
Panaka = Purungu Panaka = Karimarra
Karimarm = Milangka/Paljeri Purungu = Milangka

While identical tenns are used in both groups, there is an important diflerence in the
systems’ structure. A coastal Karirnarra woman, for example, marries a man who would be
her son in the inland system. Sharp 1998:28 explains how the two systems map onto each
other:

A Purungu person in the southem system would be [Karimara] in
the northern and a Karimarra person in the southern system would be Punmgu in
the northern. A Milangka person in the southern system would be Panaka in the
northern and a Panaka person in the southern system would be Milangka in the

northern system.
34 Thisisaclaim reportedinNicholas T“ ‘ g ’s l‘ “ ' ofwestern ‘ '~"‘ A‘ "E" ' ‘ south
of the Kimberley Region 1996, " ' ‘ at: ‘ , ‘ anu Mn an WWWVLP "‘ igPages/LANG/WN
wahbkhtm.

The spedific Nyangumarta page is at hltp://coombs.anILedu.an/WWWVLPages/Aborighges/LANG/WA/4_5_
5.htm