Tarangga

Abstract

Tarrangga (Tarangga in KWP’s New Spelling 2010), was the Kaurna name adopted in 1839 by James McLeod for his property ‘Tarranga’ on the northern side of Pedler Creek at McLaren Vale, from Section 116 at ‘Coweolonga’1 to Section 138 on Chalk Hill. It is likely that he obtained the name from the first surveyors, in particular his friend James Hawker. Hawker was in charge of a survey party which for several months of that year was camped on the flats somewhere east of today’s Tintara Winery, “about a mile” from McLeod’s homestead. Hawker in turn had no doubt obtained the name from Kaurna guides employed by the survey department at this time. The name means ‘place of the connector or joiner’, which in the context of a swampy creek almost certainly means ‘crossing place’.