The Mangarla, also written Mangala, are an Aboriginal people whose country lies in the north-western Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia, inland from the Indian Ocean coast. Their neighbours include the Karajarri, the Walmajarri, with the Juwaliny and Yulparija further south. Today many Mangarla people live in the communities of Jarlmadangah and Bidyadanga, and together with the Nyikina they hold native title over a large stretch of the Fitzroy River country.
Country
The anthropologist Norman Tindale put Mangarla lands at roughly 15,600 square miles. They covered the desert plateau around the McLarty Hills, reached north as far as Geegully Creek and the upper Edgar Range, and extended north-west across the plateau above Dampier Downs towards the coast. The Mangarla are also one of the language groups of the Ngurrara, the peoples of the Great Sandy Desert who in 2007 won recognition of native title over some 76,000 square kilometres, presenting their case through a huge painting of their country.
Language
Mangarla belongs to the Marrngu group of the Pama–Nyungan family, and two varieties are known, Kakutu and Ngulatu. Like most Australian languages it has only three vowels, alongside 17 consonants. It is critically endangered: a 2002 count found fewer than 20 native speakers. The Pallottine priest Kevin McKelson, who learned several local languages and was known to their speakers as Japulu, "father", compiled the first Mangarla dictionary in 1998; it became the basis of a dictionary published with Albert Burgman in 2005, and a grammar followed in a 2020 doctoral study.
Stations and wages
Early colonists lumped the Mangarla together with the Walmajarri, Wangkatjungka and Nyikina as a "desert mob". From about 1885 pastoralists took over Mangarla land for grazing, and many Mangarla men were rounded up to work as station hands for a yearly payment of boots, a shirt and trousers. Descendants say that money some workers earned was kept by employers "for safe keeping", and that this situation lasted until equal pay was introduced in the late 1960s, after which many of them lost their jobs.
Native title
In 2014, after a claim lasting 18 years, Justice John Gilmour of the Federal Court recognised the native title of the Nyikina Mangarla people over about 26,000 square kilometres, from King Sound through the Fitzroy Valley to the Great Sandy Desert.
On our maps
Our maps from 1600 to 1815 draw an approximate Mangarla territory, labelled Mangala, inland from the north-west coast of Australia. Its neighbours include the Karajarri, the Walmajarri, the Nyikina and the Nyangumarta, among the many Aboriginal Australian nations of the region.
From the atlas
Mangarla on our maps
Borders of Time draws Mangarla on 7 of its 54 world maps, from 1600 CE to 1815 CE. Its largest extent is on the 1600 CE map, covering about 41,500 km² (16,000 sq mi), roughly the size of Switzerland today.
On that map it borders Nyangumarda and Yulparitja.
On the map before it appears (1530 CE), the same area belongs to the Australian aboriginal hunter-gatherers. On the map after its last appearance (1878 CE), it belongs to Western Australia (UK).
- 1600 CE41,500 km²
- 1650 CE41,500 km²
- 1700 CE41,500 km²
- 1715 CE41,500 km²
- 1783 CE41,500 km²
- 1800 CE41,500 km²
- 1815 CE41,500 km²
Measured from the historical-basemaps snapshots this atlas uses. Borders in those maps are approximate, especially for early periods.
Quick answers
- When did Mangarla exist?
- It appears on the atlas’s maps from 1600 to 1815.
- Where was Mangarla?
- At its largest, on the 1600 map, its land lies in today’s Australia (100%). On that map it borders Nyangumarda and Yulparitja.
- How big was Mangarla?
- Mangarla was largest on the 1600 map, at about 41,500 km² (16,000 sq mi).