?Purtawarti / ?Purtartilla / ?Purditilla (Ochre Cover)

Abstract

No Aboriginal name was recorded at first contact for Ochre Cove (often called Red Ochre Cove). In the 1930s ethnologists recorded two Ngarrindjeri names for Ochre Cove: “Putawatang” from the Ramindjeri man Reuben Walker, and “`Poţ`artang” (or “Putatang”) from the Yaraldi man Albert Karlowan. Both men believed that the word they gave meant ‘red ochre’; but this is not so, as neither word matches any Ngarrindjeri or Kaurna vocabulary for ‘ochre’. Ochre Cove was the major source of valuable red ochre for a very large area of south-eastern Australia south of the Flinders Ranges. As a consequence it was an important centre of trade to and from the upper River Murray and Victoria. It also contained one of the springs created by the culture hero Tjirbuki when he stopped here to weep over his murdered nephew, in the course of his journey southward carrying the smoke-dried body.