Potidjara (WA)

LocationSouth of Lake George; east of Lake Disappointment, n.n. ['Podali]; their boundary with Mandjildjara is at Tjundutjundu (Dundadjinda Well 30 on Canning Stock Route). In times of drought they came south for water to Kadidi on Wongawol Station near Lake Augusta and to Tjangara (not marked on maps). The latter is a good sand soak of the ['raga] or moon totem. Pulburumal (Canning Stock Route Well 12) is the southernmost named place within their earlier tribal knowledge; at Lawulawu (Canning Stock Route Well 16) they met the Kartudjara. Eastward their territory extended to Mendel, somewhere considerably beyond the southeastern point of Lake Disappointment in the direction of Hutton Range and east to Kolajuru, an unidentified place probably near 124°30'E x 23° 20'S. Berndt (1964) seems to have transposed positions of this tribe and Kartudjara on his sketch map. Brandenstein's and Berndt's maps place the names of these people in places only visited since tribal disruption took place in the 1930s.
Co-ordinates123°15'E x 24°0'S
Area20,000 sq. m. (52,000 sq. km.)
ReferencesBates, 1914; Tindale, 1953 MS, 1957 MS, 1966, 1966 MS; Birdsell, 1954 MS; O'Grady, 1958 MS; Berndt, 1959, 1964; Lindquist, 1961; Berndt and Berndt, 1964; Brandenstein, 1965 MS.
Alternative NamesPotitjara, Putitjara, Budidjara, Bududjara, Purditara, Budidjara, Pawutudjara, Paodudjara, Patudja, Patudjara, Partutudjara, Bawndudjara, Partutu (of the Walmadjari among whom some appeared coming from the south), Ngondidjara (Kartudjara name), Kaltalbudara (of Mandjildjara), Kaltalbudjara, Kaltalbudjira, Poroko (name used by Kokatja at Balgo Mission), Partutu (descriptive term 'lake people' applied to people associated with lake country; for example, by the Ngardi to the Pintubi; it appears as a suffix in such names as Kanapartu [Lake Mackay]), Barduwonga, Badu, Pardu, ? Tutudjara.
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