The older tribal
autonym was Ngarabana, which may have been misheard by white settlers as Arabana, the term now generally accepted by new generations of the Ngarabana.[2]
The neighbouring tribes were the
Kokata to the west, with the frontier between the two marked by the scarp of the western tableland near
Coober Pedy. To their east were the
Wangkanguru.[2]
Native Title
In 2012, the
National Native Title Tribunal issued a consent determination in the matter of Dodd versus the State of South Australia.[5] The Tribunal found that the Arabana maintained strong and enduring connections to country, each other and their culture. As a result, the Arabana were granted native title for more than 68,000 km2 in northern South Australia. The
Arabana Aboriginal Corporation is responsible for the lands today.
Mythology
Several traditional stories are well documented, especially that regarding a man-eating Buzzard and his Eaglehawk mate.[6] The chief protagonists are three animals: (1) Wantu Wantu, the man-eating
Black-breasted Buzzard; (2) Irritye or Irretye, a friendly
Wedge-tailed Eagle; and (3) Kutta Kutta (variantly called Akwete Akwete) who, though described as a small hawk is actually the
Spotted nightjar.[7]
History of contact
The Arabana were interviewed at
Old Peake Station[8] and Thantyiwanparda in the nearby
gidgee scrub[9] by
Walter Baldwin Spencer and
Francis James Gillen over a ten-day period[10] in August 1903 for a specific purpose. Their earlier work had argued that the truly "primitive" nature of the
Arrernte was indicated by the fact that their totemic identities came from the spirit responsible for making individuals' mothers pregnant.
James Frazer adopted this to buttress his theories on the development phases of "primitive societies". A Scottish amateur ethnographer
Andrew Lang contested their interpretations of the Arrernte, arguing that they were not "primitive", a label he argued was more appropriate to their near neighbours the Arabana, who traced descent through the mother and linked their totemic system to
exogamy. It was to address this challenge that accounted for Spencer and Gillen's return to Arabana lands.[9]
Today, cross-cultural research collaborations are building on Arabana traditional knowledge and colonial and pastoral experiences to develop new ways of approaching modeling climate change.[11]
Social organisation
The Arabana were divided into
kin groups, whose respective territories were called wadlu.