TAINMUNDILLA

'mistletoe place'

Tainmundilla is a newly constructed word in the Kaurna language, the original language of the Adelaide Plains, now being reclaimed by the Kaurna people.

As a three-syllable word, tainmunda ‘mistletoe’ takes the –illa location suffix. When–illa is added the final vowel on tainmunda is dropped resulting in tainmundilla ‘mistletoe place’.

Teichelmann & Schürmann (1840: 42) define tainmunda as ‘a parasitical plant on the red gum tree’. River redgums were prolific in this area. The fruit of the mistletoe is edible (Clarke, 1985: 11). Tainmunda is spread from tree to tree by the mistletoe bird (a small bird with red breast, black wings and white underbelly. Unlike other birds, the mistletoe bird sits astride the branch depositing the mistletoe seed on the branch in its droppings).

Tainmunda or mistletoe is an important element in the environment supporting a range of creatures including a particular butterfly. It is an integral part of a healthy stand of redgums, only becoming a problem in a degraded and compromised ecology.

Tainmunda was also the name of a Kaurna child who attended the school at Piltawodli and signed the Kaurna letter penned by Ityamaii to Governor Gawler in 1841.

Edward Snell made many references to corroborees held near the Hackney Bridge (then called the SA Company’s Bridge). “There was a display of fireworks at the government house in the evening and the blacks has a corrobory at the Companies mill” (Register, 15 December 1926).

This was also a favoured camping spot as Snell indicates: “On the banks of the river near the Hackney Bridge is a stream flour mill, about a furlong north-west of which stands our residence, and on the bank of the river nearest us is a “black village” of 20 huts”. (T. Griffiths (ed.) The Life and Adventures of Edward Snell, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1988, 24 May 1850, p. 112) (in Hemming & Harris, 1998: 52-53)

Human remains (a skull and arm bone) were found by children in 1856 on the south bank of the Torrens opposite the Old Botanic Gardens. The remains were located about 3 feet below the surface when the river bank was eroded. (Best (1986: 66) cited in Hemming & Harris, 1998: 51)

Pronunciation Tips:

• ai is pronounced like I or eye or as in aisle;
• pronounce the u as in put;
• stress the first syllable.