Loritja


The Loritja or Luritja people, also known as Kukatja, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Their traditional lands are immediately west of the Derwent River, that forms a frontier with the Arrernte people, with their lands covering some. Their language is the Luritja dialect, a Western Desert language.

Name

The name Kukatja is one shared by 4 other distinct tribes throughout Australia. The root of the word seems to suggest pride in being 'meat eaters' rather than people who scrounge for vegetables for sustenance.
The Northern Territory Kukatja were often referred to in the ethnographical literature by Arerrnte exonyms for them, either Loritja or Aluritja, which bore pejorative connotations. In recent times, the use of Luritja or Kukatja-Luritja to define themselves and refer to their culture has become commonplace.

Country

According to an estimate made by Norman Tindale, the Kukatja of the Northern Territory had tribal lands covering some. Their territory is immediately west of the Derwent River, that formed their frontier with the Arrernte. He defined them as dwelling west of the Gosse Range and Palm Valley on the south
MacDonnell Ranges. Their southern limits went as far as , and they ranged southwest to Lake Amadeus, the George Gill Range, the . They were also present round , and Rudall creeks.
The Kukatja divided the year into four seasons, not by months, but in terms of heat or its absence: lurba/lurbaka was the cold period, followed by the warming period called mballangata. The hottestpeak, in summer, was known as mballaka/albobuka, followed by lurbagata.

Ethnography

The first sustained, fundamental work on the Kukatja was done by the Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow who produced 6 monumental volumes in German on them and the neighbouring Arerrnte that were published between 1907 and 1920.
The Kukatja, together with other central Australian tribes, were the object of the first attempt to undertake an examination of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories concerning 'primitive' society in Australia when Géza Róheim did fieldwork among them for eight months in 1929.

Alternative names

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Some words

The following are designated as Kukatja words by R. H. Mathews.
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Citations