Tharawal People

aka: Dharawal, Darawal, Carawal, Turawal, Thurawal, Thurrawal, Thurrawall, Turu-wal, Turuwul, Turrubul, Turuwull Tharawal (AIATSIS), nd (SIL)[1]
Sydney Basin bioregion
Hierarchy
Language family:	Pama–Nyungan
Language branch:	Yuin–Kuric
Language group:	Yora
Group dialects:	Tharawal[2]
Area
Bioregion:	Sydney Basin
Location:	Sydney and Illawarra, New South Wales
Coordinates:	34°S 151°E / 34°S 151°E / -34; 151
Rivers	Georges and Shoalhaven
Notable individuals

The Tharawal people and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people, identified by the Yuin language.^[2] Traditionally, they lived as hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans with ties of kinship, scattered along the coastal area of what is now the Sydney basin in New South Wales.

Dharawal means cabbage palm.^[3]

According to ethnologist Norman Tindale, traditional Dharawal lands encompass some 450 square miles (1,200 km²) from the south of Sydney Harbour, through Georges River, Botany Bay, Port Hacking and south beyond the Shoalhaven River to the Beecroft Peninsula. Their inland extent reaches Campbelltown and Camden.^[4]

The Gweagal were also known as the "Fire Clan". They are said to be the first people to make contact with Captain Cook. The artist Sydney Parkinson, one of the Endeavour's crew members, wrote in his journal that the indigenous people threatened them shouting words he transcribed as warra warra wai, which he glossed to signify 'Go away'. According to spokesmen for the contemporary Dharawal community, the meaning was rather 'You are all dead', since warra is a root in the Dharawal language meaning 'wither', 'white' or 'dead'. As Cook's ship hove to near the foreshore, it appeared to the Dharwal to be a white low-lying cloud, and its crew 'dead' people whom they warned off from returning to the country.^[5]

The Cubbitch Barta clan registered an Indigenous land use agreement for Helensburgh in 2011.^[6]

The whale is the main totem for the Dharawal people.^[7] The historical artwork (rock engravings) of the Dharawal people is visible on the sandstone surfaces throughout their language area and charcoal and ochre paintings, drawings and hand stencils can be found on hundreds of rock surfaces and in the many dozens of rock shelters and overhangs in that area of land.^{[citation needed]} There is a public viewing site of one group of engravings at Jibbon Point, showing a whale and a wallaby. According to an early Dharawal informant, Biddy Giles, ^[b] these images commemorated notable events, a successful hunt and the stranding of a whale.^{[9] [10]}

The Dharawal people lived mainly by the produce of local plants, fruits and vegetables and by fishing and gathering shellfish products. The men also hunted land mammals and speared fish. The women collected the vegetable foods and were well known^{[by whom?]} for their fishing and canoeing prowess. There are a large number of shell middens still visible in the areas around the southern Sydney area and a glimpse of the Dharawal lifestyle can be drawn from an understanding of the kitchen rubbish left on the midden sites.^{[citation needed]}

Source: Tindale 1974, p. 198

• Eora
• Gweagal

• Tharawal Aboriginal Corporation
• Local Aboriginal Land Council on Facebook