Pilatapa Explained

The Pilatapa (or Pirlatapa, Birladapa, or Biladaba) were an Indigenous people of South Australia, now extinct.

Country

Norman Tindale estimated that the Pilatapa had some 5000mi2 of tribal land, ranging northeast of the northern edges of the Flinders Ranges and to the north of the Lake Frome drainage basin. On the northwest they lived also around northwest to what is now the Strzelecki Desert Lakes encompassing Lake Blanche and Blanchewater. He placed their eastern extension at east to Callabonna approximately to the vicinity of Tilcha, while their southern boundaries were around Wooltana and Hamilton Creek.

Language

Their language, Pilatapa, was closely related to the Diyari language.^[1]

Social organisation and customs

Samuel Gason's account of the Pilatapa is integrated into a general description of the Diyari, Ngameni, Yandruwandha and Yauraworka.Male initiation rites involved circumcision, but excluded subincision.

Alternative names

Pidlatapa
Piladapa, Pilladapa, Pillitapa
Billidapa
Pulladapa
Berluppa
Pilliapp
Jarikuna. (Wailpi pejorative exonym).
Yarrikuna

Notes

Citations

Sources

Web site: Aboriginal South Australia . . .
Web site: AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia . . .
Book: Gason, Samuel . From Mount Freeling to Pirigundi Lake . 1886 . The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent . Curr . Edward Micklethwaite . Edward Micklethwaite Curr . 2 . 44–105 . J. Ferres . Melbourne . https://archive.org/download/cu31924026093827/cu31924026093827.pdf .
Of the tribes, Dieyerie, Auminie, Yandrawontha,Yarawuarka, Pilladapa . Gason . Samuel . . 1895 . 24 . 167–176 . 2842215 .
Group divisions and initiation ceremonies of the Barkungee tribes . Mathews . R. H. . Robert Hamilton Mathews . . 1898 . 32 . 241–255 . 10.5962/p.359301 . 259756893 . free.
Divisions of the South Australian Aborigines . Mathews . R. H. . Robert Hamilton Mathews . . January 1900 . 39 . 161 . 78–91+93 . 983545 .
Book: Tindale, Norman Barnett . Pilatapa (SA) . Norman Tindale . 1974 . Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names . . http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindaletribes/pilatapa.htm . 978-0-708-10741-6 .

Notes and References

Web site: L11: Pirlatapa. AIATSIS Collection .