View source for Ivaritji

{{Use Australian English|date=March 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
{{Short description|Kaurna elder, Kaurna language speaker and weaver}}
{{about|the person|the park named after her|Whitmore Square / Iparrityi||||}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Ivaritji
| image              = Ivaritji.jpg
| caption            = Ivaritji wearing a wallaby-skin cloak, photographed by [[Norman Tindale]] in 1928
| other_names        = Amelia Taylor, Amelia Savage
| birth_name         =
| birth_date         = {{circa|1849}}
| birth_place        = [[Port Adelaide]], [[South Australia]], Australia
| death_date         = {{Death date|1929|12|25|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Point Pearce]], South Australia, Australia
| occupation         = Weaver, cook
| known_for          = [[Kaurna]] elder; last native speaker of the [[Kaurna language]]
}}
'''Ivaritji''' ({{Circa|1849}} – 25 December 1929) also spelt '''Iparrityi''' and other variations, and also known as '''Amelia Taylor''' and '''Amelia Savage''', was an [[Australian Aboriginal elder|elder]] of the [[Kaurna]] tribe of [[Aboriginal Australians]] from the [[Adelaide Plains]] in [[South Australia]]. She was "almost certainly the last person of full Kaurna ancestry", and the [[Speaker types#Terminal speakers|last known speaker]] of the [[Kaurna language]] before its [[Language revitalization|revival]] in the 1990s.
== Name ==
''Ivaritji'', commonly now spelt ''Iparrityi'',<ref>{{cite web | last=Gara | first=Tom | title=Ivaritji (c. 1849–1929) | website=Indigenous Australia  | url=https://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/ivaritji-29705 | access-date=4 March 2024 |date=2020|quote= This article was published: in the Indigenous Australian Dictionary of Biography; online in 2020}}</ref><ref name=city2019>{{cite web | title=Iparrityi | website=[[City of Adelaide]] | date=1 September 2019 | url=https://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/blog/iparrityi/ | access-date=4 March 2024}}</ref> and also variously spelt ''Iveritji'', ''Ivarityi'', ''Ivarity'', ''Everity'', and ''Everety'', means "a gentle, misty rain" in the Kaurna language.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Black|first=J. M.|author-link1=John McConnell Black|date=1920|title=Vocabularies of four South Australian languages|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/111685#page/94/mode/1up|journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia (Incorporated)|volume=44|pages=81|via=[[Biodiversity Heritage Library]]}}</ref>
== Life ==
Ivaritji was born in [[Port Adelaide]], South Australia, in the late 1840s to [[Ityamai-itpina]], a leader of the Kaurna people, and his wife Tankaira of [[Clare, South Australia|Clare]], South Australia. Her childhood name was "Itja mau".{{sfn|Gara|1990|p=64}} She had a younger brother, Wima; an older brother, James Phillips; and several other siblings who died at a young age.<ref name=":0">{{Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography|last=Gara|first=Tom|title=Ivaritji (C. 1849–1929) |id2=ivaritji-29705|access-date=2021-03-24}}</ref><ref name="Gara19903">{{cite journal|last=Gara|first=Tom|date=December 1990|editor2=Gara|title=The life of Ivaritji|url=http://www.anthropologysocietysa.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Gara-1990a.pdf|journal=Journal of the Anthropological Society of Adelaide|volume=28|issue=1–2 (Aboriginal Australia: Special issue)|pages=64, 100|issn=1034-4438|editor1=Tom| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411043947/http://www.anthropologysocietysa.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Gara-1990a.pdf| archive-date=11 April 2021}}</ref>
{{OSM Location map| coord = {{coord|-35|138.3}}| zoom = 7| float = right| width = 225| height = 250
| shape1=n-circle
| shape-color1=red
| shape-outline1=white
| mark-size1=18
| mark-title1 = Port Adelaide
| mark-coord1 = {{coord|-34.846|138.503}}
| mark-title2 = Clarendon
| mark-coord2 = {{coord|-35.1167|138.63}}hg
| mark-title3 = Point McLeay Mission
| mark-coord3 = {{coord|-35.506|139.135}}
| mark-title4 = Point Pearce Mission
| mark-coord4 = {{coord|-34.4169|137.5}}
| mark-title5 = Moonta
| mark-coord5 = {{coord|-34.06675|137.588}}
| caption = Locations in Ivaritji's life
| auto-caption=1
}}
The Kaurna people, who may have numbered several thousand before European contact in the 1790s, were devastated by the introduced diseases and disruption to their way of life it brought, and few were left in the [[Adelaide]] area by the 1850s.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lockwood|first=Christine|url=https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1385|title=Colonialism and its Aftermath: A history of Aboriginal South Australia|date=2017|publisher=[[Wakefield Press (Australia)|Wakefield Press]]|isbn=978-174305499-4|editor1-last=Brock|editor1-first=Peggy|pages=81|chapter=4. Early encounters on the Adelaide Plains and Encounter Bay|editor2-last=Gara|editor2-first=Tom|access-date=11 April 2021|archive-date=21 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221021032937/https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1385|url-status=dead}}</ref> When Adelaide became more populated during its early [[British colonisation of South Australia|colonisation]] by European settlers, the tribe moved south to the [[Clarendon, South Australia|Clarendon]] district, where its members led semi-nomadic lives in and around the southern [[Adelaide Hills]], travelling between [[Aboriginal ration depot|ration depots]].<ref>{{cite news|date=17 December 1927|title=The Adelaide Tribe.|volume=LXX|page=54|newspaper=[[The Chronicle (South Australia)|The Chronicle]]|issue=3,807|location=South Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90091178|access-date=24 March 2021|via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Ivaritji's family became well-known in the region, with her parents referred to as "King Rodney" and "Queen Charlotte", and Ivaritji "Princess Amelia" by the local white settlers.<ref>{{cite news|date=3 August 1933|title=Towns, People, And Things We Ought To Know|volume=LXXVI|page=45|newspaper=[[The Chronicle (South Australia)|The Chronicle]]|issue=4,003|location=South Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90884121|access-date=24 March 2021|via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
When both of her parents died in the early 1860s, Ivaritji was adopted by Thomas Daily—Clarendon schoolmaster and distributor of [[Rationing|rations]] to Aboriginal people—and his wife.<ref>{{cite news|date=23 January 1930|title=Last Of Her Tribe|volume=LXXII|page=49|newspaper=[[The Chronicle (South Australia)|The Chronicle]]|issue=3,827|location=South Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90100988|via=National Library of Australia|access-date=27 March 2021}}</ref> She stayed with them for several years, learning to read and write in English, before leaving to rejoin other Aboriginal people.{{sfn|Gara|1990|p=74}} By the late 19th century, Ivaritji and several members of the last remaining Kaurna had moved to the [[Point McLeay Mission]]. There, Ivaritji worked as a cook for the reverend [[George Taplin]], and was for a time married to George Taylor ({{Circa|1859}} – 1915), an Aboriginal man from [[Kingston SE|Kingston]]. After briefly working as a domestic servant in [[Norwood, South Australia|Norwood]], she moved to the [[Point Pearce, South Australia|Point Pearce Mission Station]], where she lived for many years.<ref name=":0" />
On 20 December 1920, she married Charles John Savage (1853 – 1932), a man of African American descent, at the [[Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide|Holy Trinity Church]] in Adelaide. Charles was not permitted to live at the Point Pearce Mission with Ivaritji as he was not Aboriginal, so the couple moved to [[Moonta, South Australia|Moonta]], where they lived in a small cottage on a section of an Aboriginal Reserve called '[[Cross Roads, South Australia|the Crossroads]]'.<ref name=":0" /> The [[Chief Protector of Aborigines]], [[William Garnet South]], denied the couple the licence to the 18 acre reserve surrounding the cottage, instead allowing them only 1 acre and licensing the rest to a white farmer. Later, Ivaritji received £1 rent per month from a farmer who cropped the land.{{sfn|Gara|1990|p=85}} She supplemented Charles' pension and her rations by selling mats and baskets woven from discarded [[Hay#Baling|baling]] twine collected from neighbouring fields. She was a common sight in the Moonta township, where she spruiked her handicrafts to residents and tourists.<ref name=":0" />
In 1929, she moved to a shared cottage on the Point Pearce reserve, as she had been struggling to support herself and was ineligible to receive an age pension due to being a "full-blooded" Aboriginal and thus considered a [[Ward (law)|ward of the state]] under the laws of the time.<ref name=":0" /> She succumbed to pneumonia on Christmas Day 1929 at the Point Pearce hospital, leaving no direct descendants. At her death, she was referred to as the "last of her tribe",<ref>{{cite news|date=11 January 1930|title=Last Of Her Tribe|page=23|newspaper=[[The Advertiser (Adelaide)|The Advertiser]]|location=South Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29002519|via=National Library of Australia|access-date=27 March 2021}}</ref> however numerous descendants—although not of full Kaurna heritage—of her paternal aunt and other Kaurna people were still alive and have descendants of their own alive today.{{sfn|Gara|1990|p=98-99}}
== Legacy ==
During the later years of her life, Ivaritji was interviewed and photographed by multiple people including [[Daisy Bates (author)|Daisy Bates]], [[John McConnell Black]], [[Herbert Basedow]] and [[Norman Tindale]]. She shared many Kaurna words and place-names with them, as well as insights into aspects of Kaurna culture and the early colonial history of Adelaide. She was considered such an important source that the [[Anthropological Society of South Australia]] paid her expenses to travel from Moonta down to Adelaide to be interviewed in 1928.{{sfn|Gara|1990|p=95-96}} Her knowledge was later used in the [[Kaurna language#Language revival|revival of the Kaurna language]] in the 1990s.<ref>{{Citation|author1=Amery|first=Rob|title=Warraparna Kaurna! : reclaiming an Australian language|url=http://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/system/files/2019-04/uap-kaurna-ebook.pdf|pages=100–104|publication-date=2016|publisher=University of Adelaide Press|isbn=978-1-925261-24-0|author2=University of Adelaide, (issuing body.)|year=2016}}</ref>
[[Whitmore Square]] in the [[Adelaide city centre]], a popular gathering place for Aboriginal people particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, was [[Adelaide Park Lands#Dual naming|dual named]] in her honour in 2003.<ref>{{cite web|date=19 Mar 2018|title=City squares recognise women from the past|url=https://living.cityofadelaide.com.au/city-squares-recognise-women-from-the-past/|access-date=28 November 2019|website=City of Adelaide}}</ref><ref name="amerywilliams2002">{{cite book|last1=Amery|first1=Rob|url=https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/handle/2440/38704|title=The land is a map: placenames of Indigenous origin in Australia|last2=Williams|first2=Georgina|date=2002|publisher=Pandanus|isbn=1740760204|pages=255–276|chapter=Reclaiming through renaming: the reinstatement of Kaurna toponyms in Adelaide and the Adelaide Plains|access-date=7 March 2021|chapter-url=http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p29191/pdf/ch182.pdf|via=Adelaide Research & Scholarship ([[University of Adelaide]])}}</ref><ref name="hub">{{cite web|last1=Clark|first1=Amber|last2=Ramm|first2=Kara-Lee|last3=McInnes|first3=Simone|last4=Elton|first4=Jude|title=Whitmore Square, SA History Hub|url=https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au:443/places/whitmore-square?hh=1&|access-date=9 November 2014|publisher=History SA}}</ref> Development plans were approved in 2014 for a "Hotel Ivaritji" bordering the square,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Williams|first=Tim|date=2013-11-11|title=Troppo Architects lodge plans for Adelaide CBD's first eco-hotel in Whitmore Square|url=https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenger/city/troppo-architects-lodge-plans-for-adelaide-cbds-first-ecohotel-in-whitmore-square/news-story/07b3e70518ba22256d87457364ee10d2|access-date=2021-04-02|website=The Advertiser|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure|title=Hotel Ivaritji|url=https://plan.sa.gov.au/resource/documents/media/individual_pages/Hotel_Ivaritji.pdf|website=PlanSA|access-date=11 April 2021|archive-date=11 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411043949/https://plan.sa.gov.au/resource/documents/media/individual_pages/Hotel_Ivaritji.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> but the project was abandoned in 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bassano|first=Jessica|date=2021-01-22|title='Traditional' eight-storey hotel replaces Whitmore Square eco concept|url=https://indaily.com.au/news/2021/01/22/traditional-eight-storey-hotel-replaces-whitmore-square-eco-concept/|access-date=2021-04-02|website=InDaily|language=en}}</ref>
A display is dedicated to her in the [[South Australian Museum]]'s Australian Aboriginal Cultures gallery.<ref>{{Cite web|title=South Australian Museum - Adelaide Kaurna Walking Trail|url=https://maps.cityofadelaide.com.au/journey/62ff5ae1-b9d0-11ea-96fe-067ec0c7e8f4/default/journeymapfeature:38f89a77-b9d5-11ea-96fe-067ec0c7e8f4/info|access-date=2021-04-09|website=maps.cityofadelaide.com.au}}</ref>
== References ==
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Australian Aboriginal elders]]
[[Category:Kaurna]]
[[Category:Last known speakers of an Australian Aboriginal language]]
[[Category:People from South Australia]]
[[Category:Australian weavers]]
[[Category:1840s births]]
[[Category:1929 deaths]]
[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:Deaths from pneumonia in South Australia]]