Re: Kangaroo (was Re: Avon (was "Cafol") [Getting further OT])

From: John Hughes <john.hughes_at_...>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 13:05:47 +1000

This post is WOT (way off topic), and has only tangential Gloranthan relevance. It concerns kangaroos and Australian Aboriginal place names, and is offered as an anecdotal counter-example to Andrew's post. It's a lunchtime coffee post, and should be read in the same spirit.

It concerns my home town, a small former-mining town inland from Newcastle on Australia's east coast. It's name is Kurri Kurri.

I have an ongoing interest in the meaning of the name. It is of course Aboriginal, from the local Awabakal people and language to be precise. But what does it mean?

Theory one, the one you'll find in the tourist guide books, says "in the beginning" That interpretation, however, is recent. It does make a kind of sense - there's a former bora (initiation) ground behind the main street, where boys were once made men. There would have been a mythic connection to the site, possibly where a creative ancestor emerged. So a bora ground could conceivably be called "a place of beginnings".

A local historian came up with a new theory after examining the early records compiled by missionaries in the 1820s. He claims the word means "to move quickly". Again this is plausible - you shouldn't dally round a sacred site, and women and children would have to avoid the place all together. However I pointed out that "kurri kurri" means "to move quickly" In ENGLISH - i.e. as a pidgin pronounciation of "hurry hurry", esp when pronounced with the distinctive Aboriginal aspiration - "gurry gurry". So much for theory #2.

I've done my own (tentative) research into the surviving Awabakal language records. As it happens, the Awabakal word for 'kangaroo' is "Kar-ai', so "Kurri Kurri" or "kar-ai kar-ai" could simply mean, " the place of many kangaroos".

Such is life.

This misunderstanding and partial-misunderstanding of native place names must be very common. My present home is in Canberra, the national capital. The name (supposedly) means 'meeting place', an appropriate name for the seat of our national Parliament. What it REALLY means however, is 'the meeting place between the two breasts', an explanation that makes perfect sense as you look north from the parliamentary triangle to see the city nestled between Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie. For some strange reason, this proper translation doesn't appear in the tourist books. :)

Countless fun here for Gloranthan place names. I wonder what 'Prax" really means in the tongues of the animal riders?

John

John Hughes

Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Australian National University
Canberra ACT 2600

Phone (02) 6125 0587