‘Cowyrlanka’ / ?Kauwiyarlungga (Second Valley)

Abstract

In 1838 the explorer Stephen Hack, travelling on foot from Adelaide to Encounter Bay, Rapid Bay and back, twice recorded a Kaurna place-name as “Cowyrlanka”, “about one mile” north of Rapid Bay. No doubt he heard it from a Kaurna-speaking Aboriginal guide. The name certainly refers to the mouth area and/or lower valley of the Parananacooka River at Second Valley (roughly Sections 1553, 1554, and 1567). Hack’s spelling certainly represents a Kaurna compound word, one of a number of possibilities which are very hard to decide between. In a balance between linguistic and landscape interpretations, the most likely are Kauwi-yarlungga (‘place of fresh water and sea’) or Kauwayarlungga (‘place of cliffs and sea’), both of which would make clear references to features of the place. The place was on the well-used Aboriginal route between major campsites to the north at Yarnauwingga (Wirrina Cove area) and Yarnkalyilla (mouth of the Yankalilla River), 3 and 10 km respectively, and to the south at Yarta-kurlangga (Rapid Bay, 3 km on foot over the ridges). ‘Cowyrlanka’ offered a very good freshwater pool or tiny lagoon at the river mouth, fed by springs around the Parananacooka River upstream, and bordered by useful reeds and rushes; a small shallow bay ideal for net-fishing, as shown in the famous painting by George French Angas in 1844; a magnificent fire-managed hunting ground nearby in the grassy valley; sheltered campsites on or immediately above the beach; and good lookout sites nearby on the high cliffs.