Wangkatha

Wangkatha is both a language and a shared identity for Aboriginal peoples of the north-eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, the country around Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Menzies, Leonora and Laverton. Also written Wongatha, Wongutha or Wangkatja, or simply Wongi, the name comes from a word meaning "to speak". Wangkatha people still live on and around their traditional lands, and their language is still spoken.

The Wangkatha identity draws together eight peoples, among them the Koara (Kuwarra), Waljen, Maduwongga, Tjalkatjarra, Pindiini and Ngaanyatjarra, each said to have its own dialect. Their speech belongs to the Western Desert language, a large dialect chain of the Pama–Nyungan family that stretches across the deserts of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia, and whose speakers can understand one another across its whole range. Linguists find the Pindiini, Wangkatha and Wangkatja varieties hard to tell apart. Wangkatha has roughly 200 to 300 fluent speakers, most of them living in towns and communities such as Kalgoorlie, Leonora, Laverton, Cosmo Newberry and Mulga Queen.

The arrival of large numbers of outsiders came with the gold rushes of the 1890s. In June 1893 the prospector Paddy Hannan found gold near the site of Kalgoorlie, and the rush that followed soon made Kalgoorlie the largest settlement of the Eastern Goldfields. The name Kalgoorlie itself comes from the Wangai language of the region. Gold and nickel mining still employ about a quarter of the town's workforce, and these towns built on Wangkatha country are now home to many Wangkatha families.

Wangkatha people have made their mark in public life. Sadie Canning, head matron of Leonora Hospital in the 1950s, is recognised as Australia's first Aboriginal nurse and matron, and May O'Brien became the first Aboriginal woman teacher in Western Australia. Gloria Brennan was the first Aboriginal graduate of the University of Western Australia, and Kalgoorlie's Yabu Band, formed in the mid-1990s, took its name from the Wongutha word for rock or gold. The footballer Syd Jackson, named in the Indigenous Team of the Century, was removed from his family in childhood and brought up at Roelands Mission near Bunbury. Today the Goldfields Aboriginal Land and Sea Council represents the native title interests of Wangkatha groups, after an earlier Wongatha corporation was wound up in 2010.

Our maps from 1600 to 1815 draw an approximate Wangkatha territory, labelled Wangkathaa, in the north-eastern Goldfields, a simplified outline of a shared language area. Neighbours include the Ngaanyatjarra, the Wajarri and other Western Desert peoples of Australia.