Pitapita Explained

The Pitapita or Pitta Pitta are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland.

Language

They spoke Pitapita, one of the Karnic languages, which remains the best described dialect of an eastern group that comprised also Rangwa, Kunkalanya, Ngulupulu and Ringa-Ringa. It is otherwise closely related to the Western group consisting of Wangkajutjuru/Wangka-Yutjurru and Lhanima.

Country

The Pitapita's precise geographical borders are not known, since the earliest detailed account of them, by Walter Roth, included numerous subtribes and hordes in a somewhat confusing presentation. Norman Tindale remarked that the precise tribal distribution was impossible to determine on the basis of Roth's data but that their area was in the present day Shire of Boulia, extending from Fort William in the north, through Boulia and some 50 miles south of the district, suggesting a territorial range of roughly 2700mi2.

Their land was adjacent to the Wanggamala people.^[1]

History of contact

Opening up the country to white settlement led to the displacement of numerous tribes in the area from their traditional grounds, and "with privation, disease, alcohol and lead", whole communities were annihilated. By the time of his sojourn at Boulia, Roth goes on to estimate that, as with most tribes in the area, the Pitapita were suffering from a rapid demographic collapse, and he stated that no more than 200 probably remained in the whole of the district.

Native title

In 2012 a Federal Court awarded the Pitapita native title rights to 30000km2 of land in the Boulia region.

Social organisation and rites

The Pitapita practised both circumcision and subincision as part of their initiatory rites.

Alternative names

• Bitta Bitta
• Pittapitta
• Wangkahicho
• Wangkahichs (typo)
• Wangkapit:a

Source:

Some words

• amma (mother)
• apari (father)
• munga (tame dog)
• punamya (wild dog)
• tita (white man)

Source:

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Web site: AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia . 14 May 2024 . . .
• The origins of tense-based case marking in Pitta-Pitta and Wangkajutjuru . Bowern . Claire . Claire Bowern . Australian Journal of Linguistics . 2004 . 24 . 2 . 163–183 . 10.1080/0726860042000271816 . 62763157 .
• Book: Eglinton, Ernest . On the Hamilton River, and near Boulia. The Bitta Bitta tribe . 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 . J. Ferres . Melbourne . 2 . 364–365 . https://archive.org/download/cu31924026093827/cu31924026093827.pdf .
• Book: Roth, W. E. . Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines . 1897 . Walter Roth . Edmund Gregory, Government Printer . Brisbane . PDF .
• Book: Tapp, Virginia . Pitta Pitta people awarded native title for Boulia land . . 29 August 2012 .
• Book: Tindale, Norman Barnett . Pitapita (QLD) . 1974 . Norman Tindale . Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names . Australian National University Press . http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindaletribes/pitapita.htm . 978-0-708-10741-6 .

Notes and References

1. Web site: Map of Indigenous Australia . AIATSIS. David R.. Horton. 1996 . David Horton (writer).